


Fortuitous

by Chromaticism



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, Anal Fingering, Attempted Kidnapping, Child Abandonment, Earthborn (Mass Effect), Hand Jobs, Headcanon, Kissing, Limited Physical Attraction, Long-Distance Friendship, M/M, Male Character of Color, Masturbation in Shower, Mild Xenophobia, Oral Sex, Racist Language, Romantic Friendship, Sexual Experimentation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-03-23 09:53:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3763699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromaticism/pseuds/Chromaticism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for the kinkmeme:</p><p>http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/7799.html?thread=39469175#t39469175</p><p>During Shepard's OCS/N7 days, s/he bumps into a Hierarchy cadet of roughly the same rank, and they end up friends. Some time later, they meet again at a formal event, now fully-fludged officers (not the Normandy yet), and become somewhat more than friends.</p><p>The A!A can leave it there or take it further. Bonus points if s/he's one of Pallin/Sparatus/Victus' kids, for maximum awkwardness.</p><p>If A!A does take it further:<br/>- Are the two casual or serious?<br/>- Does one/both get hauled in front of a panel on charges of conspiring with a foreign power?<br/>- Will their peers tease/heckle them for being "traitors" or "tail-chasers?"<br/>- How does s/he take Shepard's death?<br/>- (ME2) Would s/he arrest or kill Shepard if ordered to?<br/>- Does s/he trust Shep enough to leave the Hierarchy and join them against the Reapers?</p><p>02/12: Updates are fast as hell.</p><p>Contains some of my biotic headcanon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meeting

Terrence needed a cigarette. Maybe something even harder than that. He'd naturally had to quit upon joining the military, but the need still crept up on him occasionally. Thankfully he'd never dabbled in the harder stuff, and had only smoked weed infrequently.   
  
Turians to his right, turians to his left. Blue space succubi ahead and creepy ass grey men behind him. He may be slowly overcoming his xenophobia but this was too much.  
  
Way too much.  
  
Where were all the humans?  
  
Terrence had promised Anderson that he wouldn't cause a scene. That he would come to this Alliance-Hierarchy event on the Presidium to support him, the crew and the Alliance. Anderson who had done so much to ease him into the crew on the SSV Tokyo.  
  
He'd likely be dead or in jail if that police commissioner hadn't given him that chance a year ago. He was one of the few who had immediately surrendered, and as a result not been shot in the ensuing chaos when SWAT had raided one of the Reds' hideouts in Lower Manhattan.  
  
The commissioner had made him an offer upon discovering he was a biotic.  
  
 _"Go to prison and possibly disappear once a biotic research facility learns of your existence, or make something of yourself in the Alliance. Biotics are always welcome there." The commissioner had briefly grimaced before continuing, the idea of a criminal (and he'd been a criminal; arson, burglary and grand theft auto had been his vices) such as himself getting a slap on the wrist likely disgusting to him._  
  
 _"Your choice."_  
  
He was the only one of those who'd survived the raid who'd been made that offer, the others ending up in prison. Prison and potential lab guinea pig status had never been an option in his mind, so here he was, 19 years old, Private 1st Class Shepard.  
  
To think Terrence Shepard, former Reds member, would be sticking to the straight and narrow, cozying up to aliens. If you were to ask any members of the Reds, being in general vicinity of aliens without vocalizing any form of disgust or physical assault was a form of cozying up.  
  
Anderson did say that this would be a good way for him to get used to seeing other races. Wishful thinking really, all it made him feel was an almost pathological need to hold a gun in his hands, and keep his biotics ready to flare for a Throw. Asari were just so.. uncanny valley. Turians just reminded him of evolved dinosaurs (there was a reason those were wiped out, extinction events hooray) and he was fairly sure there was a reason why most popular 21st century sci-fi movies depicted alien visitors similar to salarians. Call him a conspiracy theorist, but the similarities were far too close to be a coincidence.  
  
The last speech had just ended, given by some salarian going a mile a minute, and now a turian was stepping up to the podium. This should be enthralling.  
  
He still needed a cigarette. The turian sat next to him seemed to become ramrod straight as the speaker began to speak. It was kind of bizarre, the turian capacity for stillness. Taking a closer look he did look incredibly similar to the speaker, but then all turians tended to look alike in his mind. All tall, sharp toothed with tribal face tattoos. If they were human, they'd make a pretty awesome Native American prison gang. They'd have their own spirit animal and shit - space raptor.   
  
Terrence chuckled under his breath and the turian next to him gave him a brief accusatory stare. He resisted the urge to flinch in the sight of those predatory, unblinking avian eyes. What did this cuttlebone fucker want?  
  
"What?" Terrence managed to ask.   
  
For all the intimidation there was in the armour he was wearing; black with a red trim (he'd admit the turian had taste), he was polite in his response. His body language neutral, with none of the almost chest thrusting pride that other turians displayed.  
  
"Can you please be quiet?"  
  
Terrence nodded in reply, it was only fair considering he hadn't displayed any of the typical turian uptight behaviour. Anderson was always saying that the best way to conquer a fear was to confront it. He'd give it a go, this turian didn't seem to be too bad.  
  
Though he still was a turian. Shame.  
  
"Who is speaking? Do you know?"  
  
Okay, maybe asking that question was a mistake, as now the turian's attention was fully focussed on him. He (Terrence thought it was a he) spoke in a quiet whisper.  
  
"You don't know the speaker?" The turian asked, seeming to catch himself before the incredulity could escape his voice.  
  
"Of course.. you're a human. That's my father, General Victus."

Terrence could see the resemblance beyond their similar appearances in the quiet dignity they both carried.  
  
The clear admiration in his voice that was clear as day helped.  
  
Terrence couldn't say it warmed him, his own parents had abandoned him upon his biotics manifesting. One day he was living in Queens, the next he was one of the many homeless and his parents had moved out. Anderson had done some probing on his behalf and they were now in Madrid, with a new child. That had hurt him even more than being abandoned, the fact that he was so replaceable. Disposable. It wasn't his fucking fault that his mother had been stupid enough to get caught up in that eezo spill in Singapore.  
  
He was simmering. Hands tightly bound in fists and eyes closed in an attempt to stop his biotics from manifesting. From his time as an enforcer from the age of fourteen, as young as he'd been, his biotics had been valuable to the gang and he'd come to learn to trigger them through anger. It was a habit he was having problems getting out of to the consternation of the biotics instructor he had on the SSV Tokyo.  
  
"Are you.. alright? I didn't mean to upset you."  
  
He just needed to calm down, and the turian's voice wasn't particularly helping. The alien flange and sincere inquiry (the only person who seemed to give a damn about him these days was Anderson) just proving even more disconcerting.  
  
"I'm fine. Why do you care turian? Don't all of you hate humans?" Terrence managed to grit out between his clenched teeth.  
  
Opening his eyes and looking at the turian, despite his alien features, the turian looked a little amused. The bastard. Did turians even marry? He'd never seen a female one before so maybe they were all hermaphrodites. Creepy ass lizard, bird raptor things. Xenobiology had never been a strong suit of his.  
  
"Well, my name isn't turian to begin with, it's Tarquin. And I don't hate humans. My father respects your race's capabilities and drive so I do as well."  
  
Tarquin, huh? Little daddy's boy. Talking to him was distracting him from his anger so he supposed he'd continue. Anderson would be proud that at least he was making an attempt to not in his words be a 'xenophobic wimp'.  
  
Probably not in this way, sneering at the turian.  
  
"I can't imagine that must be a popular opinion, turian."  
  
"Maybe I should be the one asking you if all humans hate turians? I've done nothing but attempt to be polite to you. In return, you have just went out of your way to live up to the reputation of humans that my friends frequently try to bring me over to. Let me just listen to the speech in peace." The turian said all too calmly for the amount of dismissal his words contained.

He then turned back to face the speaker, his father.  
  
He honestly wasn't sorry, but he wasn't particularly interested in listening to the speech either.  
  
"Turian."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Hey, turian."  
  
Terrence thought he saw the turian's mandibles twitch slightly. Irritating him wasn't half bad.  
  
"Daddy's boy."  
  
"Spirits.. maybe my father was wrong about humans. What do you want?" He asked.  
  
Terrence didn't know what he wanted, he'd expected to be ignored for the rest of the speech. But maybe the turian was too young to have the almost ridiculous discipline that the rest had.   
  
"How old are you?" He asked.  
  
The turian made no sign of hearing him, instead choosing to reassume his almost unnatural stillness.  
  
"Tarquin?"  
  
Tarquin quietly huffed and the idea of an alien doing something so human to express his annoyance proved to be disorientating to him.  
  
"18. Now leave me alone."  
  
No way in hell. This certainly beat listening to the speech.  
  
"I was going to apologize for my behaviour."  
  
"No you weren't."  
  
Guilty. Kid was sharp.   
  
"No I wasn't." He scratched the back of his head, slightly nervous under the kid's heavy stare.   
  
"Maybe we could start again? Private Terrence Shepard of the Alliance currently serving on the SSV Tokyo. Biotic. I'm 19."  
  
Tarquin's father was wrapping up now, and Terrence had enough foresight to look to the front and applaud. Hackett was about to speak now.  
  
As Hackett began to speak the kid spoke.   
  
It was hard to hate him when he was so calm, so young.

Terrence himself was still a hothead, a year into his service. Easily riled. Easily angered. It was why he tended to spend any free time he had by himself, not that any of the crew members besides Anderson, and perhaps Chakwas enjoyed his company. Though he suspected that Chakwas was just being professional. 

His quiet dignity was completely strange to him and something he envied. The fact that he needed to be an emotional wreck to activate his biotics made him feel useless.   
  
"Corporal Tarquin Victus."  
  
"Corporal? Your father must be proud."  
  
His mandibles lifted. A smile?  
  
"He is."

It was a little awkward after that, mostly on Terrence's part. That he could admit. Eventually, the turian turned back to face the front though he was a lot more relaxed now. Nowhere near as statue still as he'd been for his father's speech.  
  
If he were human, Terrence would assume he was zoning Hackett out.  
  
He really was a daddy's boy.  
  
The turi- Tarquin. He had a name, right.   
  
What did you say to a turian?   
  
Terrence didn't have a fucking clue. Asking questions about military life might end up with him having to reciprocate. Being honest about his own background on the Tokyo had went so well.   
  
So... how do you keep your teeth so sharp? Blowjobs are definitely a no-no with that mouth. He almost felt sorry for turians.  
  
Almost.  
  
What's it like having three fingers? Handjobs must be pretty shitty with a three fingered hand. Terrence couldn't help but picture himself masturbating with just a thumb and two fingers and had to hold in a chuckle. That would take a long time to go anywhere, if it even did anything.   
  
And now his mind was wondering about turian masturbatory habits. Fuck.   
  
Hackett was droning on about interspecies unity and human perseverance. It was all very Disney.  
  
Yawn.  
  
Terrence discreetly opened his omnitool, probably the best thing that joining the military had resulted in. If his biotics weren't so naturally strong (he was going to get an amp fitted once he'd acquired the required emotional control) he'd have liked to have become a Sentinel rather than an Adept. The idea of using his omnitool as a weapon, instead of a time-killer, almost made him feel giddy.  
  
Hmm... what to do?...  
  
Of course. Hopefully the turian would be interested in playing, it'd be nice to play Civilization multiplayer.  
  
It'd probably appeal to him. Turians lived and breathed anything to do with the military. Particularly military and strategy games, even he knew that. The Reds (himself included) had found it highly ironic that the most popular vintage human vid amongst turians was Saving Private Ryan.  
  
Terrence set up the game before dimming the brightness on the emerging holographical screen representing the game.  
  
He slowly edged his wrist towards the arm-rest separating their seats. Discreetly, of course. As far as the surrounding audience were concerned he was eagerly watching Hackett bore everyone to tears.  
  
A whispered flanging voice met him before he could even ask, before he could look up at him.  
  
"You can't be serious."  
  
A smirk crossed his face as he whispered back.  
  
"It's a civilization building strategy game. Me and you versus 8 AI. You game?"  
  
Tarquin looked at the holographical representation in consideration. He seemed tempted, or maybe the alternative of continuing to listen to Hackett was that terrible.  
  
How do you lure a turian into playing a strategy game?

What had he learnt in the history classes about the Citadel he'd occasionally attended?  
  
"You can build your little military and enslave the AI if you want. Think of the AI as Krogan. Unfortunately there's no Genophage but orbital bombardment is an option. Maybe you can think of them as slavers if that helps. Hell, I'll support you whilst I buy out all the city states. They're like... err.. volus. Yeah, volus."  
  
Tarquin looked scandalized, almost recoiling but his mandibles were slightly lifted. A scandalized smile?  
  
Good enough. At least he wasn't showing his teeth, he might just recoil in turn.  
  
"I can send you the game and there's several translations into other species languages so you should be okay. It's pretty popular with turians already."  
  
That was an educated guess, Terrence had no fucking clue.  
  
Tarquin quietly laughed and it wasn't such a bad sound, surprisingly. Slightly reverberant due to the flange, and not as gravelly deep as his father's voice. It could grow on him he supposed.  
  
"Alright, why not? There's no need to send me a copy, I'm relatively fluent in English. It is in English, right?"  
  
Terrence was gobsmacked. Why the fuck did he know English?  
  
Tarquin seemed to anticipate his surprise as he went on to explain.  
  
"I don't know what you know about turian military history, but it's generally common for large squads to have a record-keeper to act as a go-between for the squad and the legion's historians. It's been a cultural expectation for them to be multilingual from pre-spaceflight times. I'm fluent in Primus Lingua, turian common, Siarin, the asari higher dialect and English. I'm currently learning Haestus, a dead turian language."  
  
Terrence absently nodded, still shocked, and placed his wrist on the armrest before shaking it in Tarquin's direction.  
  
"You're going to be Rome." Terrence said, no commanded.

Tarquin froze for a second and looked at him carefully.  
  
"Why do I have the feeling you're being racist?" 


	2. Not So Different

Terrence had ended up sending a copy of the game to Tarquin anyway. It'd be easier to maintain their ruse, as transparent as it was, by communicating in the game rather than whispering to each other.  
  
Terrence thought it was kind of convenient that their starting locations were pretty much next to each other. It'd be a shame for Tarquin to get wiped out in the first 50 turns to warmongers like the Huns or Mongolia who spiked early in the game.   
  
(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: So, Terrence. Can you please tell me how you thought a middle-aged, pale-skinned human in a gaudy, white robe would prove relatable to me?  
  
Tarquin was doing pretty well, or maybe this game was intuitive to turians. He'd rushed settlers to get the rest of Italy and had taken most of Greece. He was lucky that only France and Sweden were local to them so he could expand without fear of any major repercussions. As long as he maintained his military in proportion to the size of his empire.  
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice: You look amazingly alike of course. But seriously, turians and the Romans have a lot of cultural similarities. Both of you are renowned for your military discipline, hierarchy-based society. You both call parts of your military legions and your names, or their translations, are really similar, if not identical to Roman names.  
  
(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: Really? What about my name?   
  
Terrence quickly opened another holo window and searched his name.  
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice: One second, checking the extranet.   
  
He couldn't help but smirk at 'Superbus' as he read the origin of the name Tarquin in human culture.  
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice: Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was the legendary seventh and final king of Rome, reigning from 535 BC until the popular uprising in 509 that led to the establishment of the Roman Republic.  
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice:   
  
Noun  
  
vīctus m (genitive victūs); fourth declension  
  
living, way of life  
nourishment, provision, diet, that which sustains life  
  
Of course his name was pretentiously impressive.  
  
(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: Interesting. You'll be interested to know that in turian common, Terrence is close to a word that translates to sly or cunning. Shepard is gibberish though. What does your name mean to a human?  
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice: Name meanings have died away for humans really. Parents generally pick what is common in their culture, or what they like. Let me check the extranet again.  
  
(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: That's largely different from turians. Whilst we are culturally aware of our names, it is common to pick a name that has good meaning and bodes well for a fledgling's future.  
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice: Fledgling? And you said you're rather fluent in English, it seems perfect to me.   
  
(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: I'm honoured you think so, and a fledgling is a turian child below the age of 8. We take longer to mature physically as children than humans. Turian children are rather small.  
  
(Terrence Shepard): Well from the extranet, it has two main meanings. In Gaelic it means from the knolls and in Latin, the language of the Romans, it means smooth. Then the contemporary meaning in English is tender. A shepherd, note the spelling, is someone who herds sheep, they're a type of livestock.  
  
Tarquin slightly shook beside him as he held his face in his free hand to muffle his mirth. Terrence found himself fighting to stop himself from smiling, his laughter was slightly infectious.  
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice: Stop laughing.  
  
Tarquin audibly wheezed, thankfully no-one turned around, and Terrence's lips twitched into a slight smile.  
  
(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: I'm sorry, but your name means from the small hills? And smooth? Sounds more like a name to be given to a pet. Don't even get me started on the tender part or the livestock rearing.  
  
Terrence was surprised that he wasn't angry at him for pretty much insulting his name. Tarquin was growing on him fast.  
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice: Not all of us can have the name of kings.

(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: Well, it's a lot more mundane on my side. Though I am flattered that humans would think so highly of me based on only my name. My name, Tarquin, is an old Primus Lingua word which means steadfast or resolute. Victus is a corruption of a Haestus word for conquest.  
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice: How... turian for your name to mean steadfast conquest. Is war the only thing on turian minds?  
  
(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: How... human for your name to mean the smooth, tender sheep herder from the hills. Is making sense ever an option in human minds?  
  
Terrence couldn't help but snigger into his own hand. They were like a pair of teenagers just cracking shitty jokes in the back of a classroom.   
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice: Touché.  
  
(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: Indeed. Maybe we should get back to playing, I just got my unique unit: the Legion (which is exactly what we call our human Marine analogue, the resemblances are uncanny when you look past the squishiness). I can build roads and forts with it, interesting. Seems the Romans have the same focus on infrastructure as early, and contemporary, turians do. I can focus my workers on improving all the wine I have now. How's it going in Venice?  
  
Tarquin was a natural. Able to pick past all the tooltips and numbers to the strategical use of each unit and building.   
  
Not as good as himself, but Terrence could see he was pretty damn good for a beginner. They were playing on the 3rd highest difficulty as well.   
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice: Good. I'm about to get the Hanging Gardens of Babylon so my capital will grow faster. It provides a boost to food and great person production (free garden) which will help when I need to start churning out Merchants of Venice. When we reach the Medieval Era I'll get my first Merchant of Venice and be able to buy out city states. I'll be getting Valetta to your south. Also, you might want to be careful as France might declare war on you (and by extension me and my one city which is my capital!) soon for expanding so close to Paris, his capital. France's military is rather formidable at the moment.  
  
(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: I was wondering why you weren't making any settlers until I checked the Civilopedia (the ingame encyclopedia is pretty nice) and saw that Venice can't produce settlers and can only control city states. Napoleon, I hope I spelt that right, has been sending me messages telling me to stop settling lands he sees as his.  
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo: And you ignored him?  
  
(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: I plan on taking his capital. He has lots of wine inside his borders. My citizens like wine.   
  
He had the feeling that Tarquin was smirking as he read his reply. He would in his position.  
  
And then Tarquin declared war on France. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. Terrence had planned on using Tarquin's huge military as a shield to prevent declarations being made against him as the AI tended to prey on the weak. Tarquin wasn't the one who shared a border with France, he'd been expanding to the east towards Belgrade (the city state he planned on taking after Valetta). Terrence had a grand total of 3 composite bowman and 2 spearmen to Tarquin's 6 ballista, 8 composite bowmen, 4 spearmen and 9 legions. He couldn't imagine what France had as they were number one on the demographics for military manpower.  
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice: God forgive me for creating a monster.  
  
(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: Spirits help Napoleon when I take all his wine for my own. He has 5 cities so I'll start with the one most local to me, Troyes.  
  
And Tarquin proceeded to steamroll the French, only losing 3 legions and a ballista. Terrence was just flabbergasted as Tarquin took Paris 30 turns later.

(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: If you're awed by my lack of losses, just know that pillaging is such a strong option for healing. Just in time for us to research Machinery; hello crossbowmen. These medieval human weapons are interesting. Longswords, pikes, crossbows and trebuchets. Bladed weapons weren't as popular in comparison to mauls and maces in turian history. Turians are more susceptible to focussed concussive blows compared to punctures. It's also why turians generally spurned projectile weaponry in earlier times before guns, of course. Only the wealthiest clans used projectile weaponry as the materials required to pierce through our plating were better served as fortifications and were popular among the wealthy, for sculpture. Siege weapons were used a lot.

(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice: Sculpture? Really?

(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: I can see your disbelief from here, Terrence. Believe it or not, turians are susceptible to vanity as much as any other race, and sculpture was a very popular art form back then. Speaking of art, the French had the Parthenon and the Notre Dame in their Capital. I appreciate their tribute to my rapidly growing war machine. Nice gold per turn by the way. You can send some of that to fund my next military campaign, Sweden is looking pretty appealing. My citizens want whales, and they have whales.  
  
Terrence would puppet a city state far to the east. Kathmandu or Singapore most likely. Tarquin may not be able to declare war on him as they were on the same team, but he'd feel safer there.  
  
Much safer.  
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice: When we get Banking I'll send you some.   
  
Then Tarquin, and by extension him, met Britain who'd apparently beaten Tarquin to Sweden as she now had them on the ropes. Stockholm was in the red and Tarquin was nowhere near to steal the capture.  
  
(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: Spirits... The British are relentless with their naval invasion. Look at all those galleasses. It's time for me to diversify my army. Rather ironic for me to consider having a large focus towards a navy. Turians don't swim, at all.  
  
(Terrence Shepard) Enrico Dandolo of Venice: I'm not surprised you sink with all that plating. You'll need to get your navy up and running preferably before she researches Navigation or we might be screwed. With the combination of her longbowmen (they have a 3 tile range) and ship of the line (the most powerful ranged naval unit of the Renaissance Era), you'll be stymied until maybe the Industrial Era. I'm going to build some great galleasses and then we're going to declare war on England.  
  
Tarquin disagreed and declared immediately. God help them both.  
  
(Tarquin Victus) Augustus Caesar of Rome: Victory at any cost. You need to be decisive when it comes to warfare, Terrence. Most of her fleet is concentrated in Northern Europe (this game has proven to be a great crash course on Earthen geography) so we can just sneak in and attack her exposed cities. Send me some gold and I'll purchase galleasses in all my coastal cities. I just need 300 more to buy 4.   
  
Then there was a round of applause as Hackett finally stepped off of the podium. About time. Terrence was about to send off the gold when a loud cough near his left ear distracted him and he looked up. It was Anderson, shit. He stood up frantically, the holographical representation of the game betraying him by brightly glowing on his wrist as he saluted.  
  
"Captain Anderson, sir."  
  
Anderson looked amused, a wry smile on his lips as he looked between the two of them. Tarquin had briefly looked up before going back to the game, his head bent intently over his wrist as he flicked through the encyclopedia on longbowmen and ships of the line.  
  
A potential addict. Terrence corrupting turians into human strategy games. Oh yes.  
  
"At ease. I noticed how much you enjoyed the speeches, Terrence."  
  
Terrence smiled back and it was genuine. He liked Anderson.  
  
"I did, I especially liked Admiral Hackett's speech on unity and... perseverance. General Victus's was good, I suppose."  
  
Tarquin faintly mumbled into his wrist behind them.  
  
"Excellent actually."  
  
Anderson laughed, a humouring smile crossing his face as he turned back to face Terrence and spoke.  
  
"So you managed to catch the first fifteen minutes of his ninety minute speech. I suppose that's better than most, I saw an asari fall asleep in the first five."  
  
"Just doing my best to defy expectations, sir." Terrence replied with a bland smile.

Anderson shook his head in response to him still calling him sir. Anderson had done a lot for him, so Terrence thought it was only right to maintain the proper respect when speaking to him.  
  
"We're back on duty at 07:00 Citadel Standard, so report to the ship then."  
  
Terrence quickly checked his omnitool, it was 15:32 CST. Plenty of time.  
  
"Understood, Captain."  
  
Anderson gave him a significant look and briefly looked at Tarquin.  
  
Terrence understood that he was approving of their.. acquaintance? He wouldn't say they were friends.  
  
Anderson departed with a final nod and walked towards the Admiral who was talking to a turian in black armour with red trim and lots of sigils. Probably a general.  
  
He took his seat again and looked at Tarquin.  
  
"I'm surprised that a horde of turians didn't descend on you to berate you."  
  
Tarquin smiled, though this time his mandibles were slightly quirked revealing his teeth. Terrence did his best not to flinch and failed. Tarquin noticed, his smile fading, and a neutral expression coming across his face as he closed the game.  
  
"I acquired exemption from duty for this week so I could see my father's speech. As I came alone and I wasn't disturbing anybody, there was no reason for them to be angry with me. We turians are a lot more reasonable than you seem to think we are."  
  
Terrence didn't know what to say to that.   
  
Tarquin looked solemn now.  
  
"I have a question I'd like to ask."   
  
Terrence nodded.  
  
"Are you afraid of just turians, or non-humans in general?" Tarquin whispered.  
  
Heat rushed to Terrence's cheeks and he couldn't help the tightening of his jaw. If he wasn't his colour, a mahogany brown, his blush would likely have given away his embarrassment. It was only because Tarquin hadn't been rude to him that he didn't punch him or used his biotics. He stood up.   
  
Terrence was walking away when Tarquin stood up and somehow managed to end up standing in front of him. He'd moved inhumanely fast, or maybe his strides were that much longer than his as he was so tall, as turians are, nearly reaching seven foot. Maybe even more. Terrence wasn't short by any stretch of the imagination standing at six foot two, but he felt dwarfed.  
  
Impotent. It only reminded himself of the year he'd spent on the streets of New York before joining the Reds, not as a member, but as something of a mascot when he'd been ten.   
  
"I didn't mean to offend you or judge you, I'm just curious."  
  
Tarquin sounded apologetic but that wasn't good enough for him. Terrence's reponse was iron-clad refusal.  
  
"I don't want to talk about it."  
  
"I think you should, it'll help. I'm a good listener."  
  
That was odd coming from him. Tarquin didn't really seem like the type of turia- person to brag, but maybe he was right. Maybe it was time to try and overcome it, his xenophobia. Whilst the Reds would call it healthy wariness of alien scum, he knew it for what it was.   
  
Fear. Learnt fear. There were only so many times you could hear the horrors of aliens before you began to believe it yourself. Especially as a child. Sharing their opinions had helped to fit in as well.  
  
He'd always be a Red at heart as they'd been his family when he'd had none, but that didn't mean he couldn't be better. Be something more. Maybe the military was that option. Having a phobia of aliens made him pathetic. Weak. Things that he didn't need in order to succeed. Maybe this was what Anderson had meant when he'd been trying to get him to overcome his xenophobia.  
  
Echoes of a child who spent every waking hour after school hiding from child traffickers and the usual creeps who frequented the alleyways in abandoned houses. He'd gotten very good at scouting and breaking into abandoned buildings before he joined the Reds. Murderers, rapists.. New York wasn't the place for a homeless, lonely child. A lonely person even. He'd done his best to avoid bringing attention to his situation to his school. He'd heard stories of how biotic children disappeared. Though looking back, it was likely that they didn't care. New York was an amoral cesspit.   
  
Terrence looked up at Tarquin at last. Becoming aware of the blue haze enveloping his right fist that Tarquin was shielding from view by angling his body towards his. That was what cemented his decision.  
  
"You're buying me drinks though."  
  
Tarquin gave him a slight smile, teeth, his needle teeth, illuminated by the game still open on his wrist. Terrence managed to control his flinch that time and Tarquin's smile extended.  
  
"That's acceptable."


	3. Surmountable

As they left the building that had housed the event, Tarquin turned to face him.  
  
"Most lounges and clubs that serve alcohol only open at 19:00 CST, so we're going to have to kill some time until then. Anything you have in mind, Terrence?"  
  
He shook his head. This was his first time on the Citadel, the only thing he was certain of, location-wise, was the Docks.  
  
Tarquin looked around, briefly scanning their surroundings before pointing in the direction of an area of the Presidium filled with horticultural gardens.  
  
"Hmm... how about that bench over there, we could continue with that game we were playing." Tarquin suggested.  
  
Terrence gave a non-committal shrug, he didn't want to give any sign of how pleased he was that his xenophobia was being ignored until he was plied with alcohol. He'd need it.  
  
"Sure."  
  
They'd played for maybe an hour in near silence before it finally got to Terrence. He'd half expected Tarquin to use the game as a way to gently probe into his background.   
  
The turian, Tarquin damn it, was far too kind for his own good. Why the fuck was he a soldier?  
  
"I get the feeling that you'd be better served in another profession, Tarquin."  
  
A wry flanging chuckle met his ears as Terrence began to gaze at the gardens surrounding the bench they were sat on. It was very calming.   
  
He may be kind, but he was very cunning in a subtle way. If he'd planned on asking any questions the scenery made it hard to feel anything but a gentle calm. The C-Sec patrolling in the distance would make any explosive reactions on his part, foolish.  
  
The kid wasn't half-bad.  
  
"Is it that obvious?" Tarquin sounded very far away as he continued. "I'd like to become a part of the committee of historians for the Seventh Legion, but I'd have to complete a mandatory fifteen year service with distinction. This is my second year in the Ninth Platoon of it."  
  
"I don't see what the problem is, Tarquin. You're a Corporal at the age of 18, it seems in my eyes that you're well on track for serving with distinction."  
  
Tarquin dipped his head at him in acknowledgement.  
  
"My father is hoping that I succeed him in his position, so it's likely within a couple of years I'll get pushed into accepting further command training. There are very few turians who possess the tactical flair that my father has, and I have some talent in that area too."   
  
Tarquin visibly drooped, his shoulders sagging and his voice sounding almost despondent.  
  
"As you can imagine, there is a lot of pressure on me to follow in his footsteps. I'm nowhere near as good as my father though, no turian is... So my only hopes are to emulate him."  
  
Terrence's hand twitched, he was tempted to place his hand on Tarquin's shoulder in support as he gazed at him intently with those black eyes surrounded by white markings and cream coloured plates. Black-blue eyes actually. Terrence could understand parents causing misery. Nine years of being loved fiercely as an only child to being discarded like yesterday's garbage.  
  
Fuck parents.  
  
But why was he telling him all this? Was Tarquin trying to play shrink with him?   
  
Fuck that.   
  
His voice was surprisingly level despite the annoyance starting to creep into him.  
  
"Why are you telling me all of this?"  
  
Tarquin shrugged unapologetically, a faint smile crossing his plated lips.  
  
"If you think I'm trying to coerce you into speaking about your xenophobia, I'm not."   
  
Tarquin sighed once more in response to Terrence's continued silence. Terrence hadn't bought that at all.  
  
"It's just nice being able to vent. Especially to a neutral party who doesn't care about your inability to match up to your father."  
  
Terrence still didn't believe him, but he managed to nod and continued to gaze without really seeing into the distance.  
  
He wasn't sure if Tarquin was just incredibly manipulative or if Terrence himself was so easy to read. Likely a bit of both, emotional control was something he lacked. He did say his father was a tactical genius, it wouldn't be wrong to say that Tarquin had gained some of his father's talent.   
  
If his father had the talent for manipulating ex-con humans into feeling they had some form of.. some form of...

Emotional attachment to a turian.  
  
No.  
  
An emotional attachment to the only person who actually seemed to want to help him out of some form of selflessness. Altruism was the word. He knew Anderson liked him and all, and it was mutual, but he was trying to shape him into something he was not. Or at least something he wasn't sure he was ready to be, not yet. Trying to be his mentor when really, all he wanted right now was a friend.   
  
It didn't help that the military was still the lesser of two evils in his mind. Something to be borne.   
  
It may be fast to say this, but he did like Tarquin. He'd make a good friend, even if he was a turian, and Terrence had so few these days. Count none.  
  
He admitted the truth that he had hidden in his thoughts.  
  
"I care."  
  
Tarquin physically froze, and his flanging voice was full of disbelief.  
  
"You do?"  
  
Terrence nodded and continued to stare into the distance. He'd never been good with cheesy shit like this with other humans, so he didn't even want to find out how horrific he'd potentially be at it with a turian.  
  
Maybe their combined manliness (with Tarquin's height and the depth of his voice, he had to be masculine) would cancel the whole emotional melodrama that could potentially emerge.  
  
Terrence's consequent snicker to himself helped lighten the mood considerably. The almost stifling tension that had arisen seemed almost like it had never happened.  
  
"I can sympathize when it comes to problems with parents. Also, you were kind to me, it's only fair that I do the same in return. You're alright, Tarquin."  
  
That small flick of mandibles to reveal teeth was his only response   
  
"That must be a glowing commendation coming from you, to a turian."  
  
The allusion to his xenophobia managed to make him smile. Unbelievable.  
  
"It sure is."  
  
They were silent again. Compared to their previous silences, this one was comfortable. Not familiar, yet welcome all the same.  
  
Terrence had a question for once.  
  
"Do you usually play therapist to your squadmates?"  
  
"I wouldn't say I play therapist. More that I listen if I feel they have any problems, it helps."  
  
"Let me guess, that's something that your father does?"  
  
Tarquin looked oddly guilty, his gaze falling back to his omnitool.  
  
"Yes."  
  
Maybe he could help him out here.   
  
"You said that your father is proud of you, right?"  
  
Tarquin nodded, he seemed almost cautious now. It was nice to turn the tables on him for once.  
  
"Then surely, he'd be happy with you the way you are? Not with you trying to become him."  
  
Tarquin's response was almost instantaneous. Self-assured even.  
  
"That doesn't mean I can't better myself." He replied.  
  
Terrence had to admit to himself that Tarquin had a point.  
  
"Why not focus on working to your strengths? I imagine you're good at things that your father isn't."  
  
Tarquin was silent for a long time. Terrence wasn't sure whether or not to be worried about the depth of hero worship Tarquin clearly had for his father. It was minutes before Tarquin spoke.  
  
"I'll have to get back to you on that one."  
  
Terrence rolled his eyes. He checked his omni-tool, seeing that it was now 18:13 CST. Not long now until he could get wasted, or as wasted as necessary to talk.

He sighed.


	4. Ease the Edge

Terrence had expected maybe a small bar or a lounge, somewhere quiet so Tarquin would be able to hear him.   
  
Not a nightclub with such overwhelming bass. Flux it was called. It must be incredibly popular to have had such a large queue in the early evening. They'd spent nearly an hour in the queue waiting to get in.  
  
"What can I get for you?" The asari bartender asked him with marked disinterest. A finger at her lip and her vision fixed at a point behind him.   
  
A human bartender for starters. Also, for her to stop looking at him like he was completely beneath her notice. A list of drinks that contained Earth drinks because he didn't recognize any of this alien shit. He didn't care that they were levo, he cared whether they were human made or not. Where was his giant turian accomplice when he was needed?  
  
"He'll have the Woodford Reserve Bourbon Whiskey," Tarquin called over his shoulder and pushed a credit chit into his right hand. Terrence almost jumped. Tarquin had went to use the Men's, he'd not known that he'd came back.  
  
It also explained the asari's lack of focus on him. He felt oddly proud and pleased that Tarquin was considered attractive by asari, or this asari in particular.  
  
Wait.. Woodford Reserve? That shit was expensive.   
  
Terrence turned and gave Tarquin a look of utter disbelief.   
  
"I saw a human at the other side of the bar order it. Or would you rather have a Thessian Aurora?" Tarquin asked with a graceful shrug. "They're about the same price."  
  
That sounded like a wimpy drink. Only the hard stuff for him, thank you.   
  
"Alright," Terrence said. Expensive whiskey would be a great end to his brief shore leave. Imminent painful memories aside. Free, expensive whiskey was more than welcome.  
  
"Just give me a moment," the bartender said with a faint smile on her lips before turning to rummage through her stock.  
  
Tarquin in his black and red armour cut an intimidating image standing at his shoulder (why was he so close?), so it made the brief smile he gave in response to Terrence's acceptance seem special. Not that it was special.   
  
And the bartender picked up on it. Her smile continuing to spread.  
  
Terrence panicked.  
  
"It's not like that. Or whatever you're thinking. We're friends, just friends."   
  
Terrence felt so exposed in his Alliance blues in face of the asari's probing, almost knowing gaze. The material was practically sheer, not that he didn't look good in it.  
  
He was a damn handsome guy after all.   
  
Then he remembered that he'd admitted that Tarquin was his friend. Well, that was a little presumptuous of him.  
  
"I'm your friend?" Tarquin asked with clear surprise in his voice.   
  
"Just friends?" The asari asked with a smirk. "In that case, I'd like to talk to your turian friend. Alone." She passed Terrence the bottle of whiskey and he took it in hand.  
  
Then she pinned her bedroom eyes, they were very good he could admit, on Tarquin.   
  
Hmm...  
  
Stay, and potentially be implicated as being in a relationship with a turian, or go and enjoy his expensive drink in peace.   
  
There was really no option in his mind.  
  
"Yeah, we're friends, Tarquin. Believe it or not. I'll leave you here with the bartender and maybe you two can get cozy together." Terrence said with a light smirk on his face.  
  
And make freaky alien babies together. That erased his smirk pretty quickly, he really didn't want to be thinking about how a turian and an asari would... well.  
  
Tarquin looked betrayed as he stepped up to the counter with the asari pretty much fucking him with her eyes. Terrence mouthed a sorry at him as he left the bar.  
  
"Since you're buying the drinks, I'll find a booth." Terrence called to Tarquin as he skilfully ignored her flirting with a flat expression.  
  
It wasn't hard to find an empty booth. It was hard to find a small booth that wasn't intended to seat a large party. The dancefloor was currently packed beyond belief which made his job easier as the area around the booths was mostly empty.   
  
He'd seen a couple of human women giving him the eye as he searched for a booth. He returned their perusal with a nod and lamented to himself that it was a shame he'd not come alone. The two asari he'd seen looking at him in appreciation were ignored, though they did help soothe the momentary blow his ego had taken at the bar.  
  
Terrence chuckled as he took a light sip of the whiskey remembering Tarquin's predicament whilst he was comfortably seated in a 3 person booth. With his eyes closed, he enjoyed the spicy, fruity finish.  
  
Damn, this is some fucking good stuff.

There was a burst of movement and he opened one of his eyes to see Tarquin rushing in like the devil was at his heels, a tall pitcher like glass filled with an ominous looking yellow drink in his hand. A succubus was a type of demon he supposed. The comparison wasn't entirely incorrect.  
  
"Nice to see you again, Tarquin. You took your time," Terrence said after closing his eyes once more, a faint smirk on his face as he enjoyed the liquid heat spreading through him.   
  
This whiskey was just sex in a bottle. It'd be in his best interests to look after this friendship carefully if Tarquin was prepared to supply him with this. Implications of being in a relationship with him were more than worth dealing with.  
  
".. Don't remind me," Tarquin mumbled as he took the seat beside him.  
  
"You don't like asari?" Terrence asked after opening his eyes.  
  
Tarquin laughed surprisingly, his large form shaking a little in his mirth.  
  
"It's not that. You should have heard some of the things she was saying: 'You're not interested? Fine, you can bring your human friend along and the three of us can all have some fun.'" Tarquin mimicked what Terrence could only assume to be her honeyed tones pretty damn well.  
  
Then he digested what he'd said. It was only the fact that the whiskey was a gift, and how fucking good it was that he didn't spit-take.  
  
"What?" He said in utter disbelief, struggling to swallow down the gulp of whiskey he'd taken in his shock. It was pretty damn strong.  
  
A smile was growing across Tarquin's face as he took a long drain of his drink. Somehow, Terrence got the feeling that it didn't bode well for him.  
  
"That's what she said, Terrence. She also said: 'I've never been with a human before. I suppose it'll be worth it to get with your sexy ass. I'd like to watch you two as well, that could be hot.'" Tarquin added, still in that ridiculous voice.   
  
Terrence twitched in discomfort. Maybe because of the fact that the idea of the two of them fucking didn't disgust him as much as he thought it would. It should. Though he had always been casual with sex, and had ended up sleeping with nearly half of the local chapter of the Tenth Street Reds he was a part of. He had never been picky. Guys. Girls. Short. Tall. Fat. White guys. Black girls. Sex was just sex to him regardless of the person. He had no real preferences.  
  
Apart from them being human.  
  
Terrence looked at Tarquin's mandibled face, so close to him and holding clear amusement at his discomfort. He took a large swig. He was clearly already buzzed to find the idea of fucking a turian to be something to be almost blasé towards. Never mind their close proximity, even if they were friends it was maybe a little too close. Terrence had expected Tarquin to take the seat on the opposite side of the booth, not the one next to him. Was he that lonely that it hadn't bothered him? Perhaps. It was nice to be treated like a friend instead of a criminal, a soldier or a nuisance. Damn nice.  
  
He also felt proud that Tarquin wasn't ashamed of the fact that they were friends. Did Tarquin even consider him as his friend? That was something that required later thought.  
  
"I think I'd rather talk about my xenophobia than that crazy asari's fantasies of you," Terrence said with a slight grimace.  
  
"Her name is Danisa, and they were of us," Tarquin added helpfully. Still smiling at him.   
  
Damn him. He was meant to be nice and mature, as he was earlier. Not teasing him.  
  
"Now that I think about it, I think she was a little drunk when we got our drinks as I could smell alcohol on her breath. She did have some compliments for you though, especially about your colouring," Tarquin acknowledged with a clinical air to him.  
  
"Tarquin," Terrence warned before he could even dare think of imitating her again.  
  
"Terrence," Tarquin replied calmly in return.  
  
Terrence just exhaled. He needed to pace himself otherwise he'd be wasted within the hour. Tarquin wasn't being helpful in that regard. The images he was provoking were the type that needed alcohol to be washed down with.  
  
"You'll find that turians are very good at revenge, Terrence," Tarquin said with a smile.  
  
Well played, Tarquin. You win this one.  
  
"Now. Do you want to still talk to me about it?" Tarquin asked kindly.  
  
Terrence shrugged non-committally. He didn't really mind either way.   
  
"Sure." Terrence replied.


	5. Memories

Tarquin gave him an expectant look as he leaned back in his seat and waited, relaxed and at ease. Terrence was glad for the lack of tension on his side as it would make things easier. He stared at the whiskey bottle in contemplation. Where to begin? From the beginning would be best.

If he ever became famous, Tarquin could write his biography. He did want to be a historian it'd prove good practice for him.

"I was born in New York City in the United States of America on Earth. My parents had recently emigrated from the Dominican Republic for work after they'd spent some time in Singapore for their honeymoon," Terrence said.

He snorted in annoyance. Fucking Singapore...

Fucking eezo spills.

"I'm not even sure why they went there, that place is probably one of the most population dense places on Earth. But I'd never claim to understand my parents," Terrence added bitterly.

"Anyway, when my parents had went to Singapore there was a large eezo spill and my..." Terrence stopped to take a swig from the bottle. Thinking about his mom just pissed him off. The burn from taking such a large gulp, straight and without a chaser, made him wince briefly.

"My mom was caught up in it. Evidently she must have been caught up in it fucking big time, dancing in the eezo and.. fuck who knows!? Because I was born three years after it happened and still ended up as a damn biotic!" Terrence cried waving his hands up in disbelief.

He could hear Tarquin laughing beside him, Terrence stopped to enjoy the sound of his laughter before choosing to continue on.

"My childhood was good. Apart from my parents' tendency towards reclusiveness, we were pretty normal. My parents weren't wealthy, but they were frugal, and we lived comfortably. We went to visit family in the Dominican Republic once when I was seven, and it's probably one of my fondest memories of the time I spent with them. My parents, that is. Santo Domingo was beautiful, almost rural in comparison to New York. Nowhere near as urbanized and there was none of the casual apathy that New Yorkers had. Everyone was so..." Terrence smiled, a genuine smile at the memory. Not one of the mocking, grim smirks he'd become fond of as of late.

"Happy," Terrence finished. He missed those days.

"I was eight when my biotics had first manifested. My parents initially were just leery, which I suppose was natural. Seeing your child suddenly making things float couldn't have been something to be nonchalant about," Terrence mused.

"You were able to make things float at the age of eight? With control?" Tarquin asked quietly before draining the remaining contents of his glass.

"Yeah, I could control it pretty well. Though that would change later though," Terrence replied, idly tracing the curves of his bottle with his index finger.

He was about to explain what he meant when Tarquin suddenly stood up, an apologetic smile on his face.

"Do you mind if I get a refill?" Tarquin asked, gesturing to his empty glass.

He did mind, but Tarquin had gotten him his whiskey so who was he to begrudge him the choice to get himself more liquor.

"Go ahead."

"Want anything, Terrence? Tarquin asked, standing at the edge of the booth with a questioning look.

He shook his head in the negative and Tarquin left in his typical predatory turian lope. It was almost eerie how silent his footsteps were despite the fact he was in full armour.

Tarquin ended up taking a long time, whether it was because the club had become even more packed or some other reason, Terrence didn't know. He ended up finishing the bottle in his absence. The whiskey ended up leaving him feeling like he was burning up, he could feel himself sweating.

So he unbuttoned the top two buttons. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. He was sober enough to know that taking off his tunic wouldn't be entirely socially acceptable. It was a good thing that he didn't end up asking for any more liquor as he was on duty tomorrow. Wouldn't be setting a good example to come in with a hangover in light of his new found desire to succeed.

He was interrupted from his attempt to rest his slightly blurry vision by a female voice.

"I was hoping when we made eyes across the room that you'd dance with me," she scolded him before adding, "I've been looking for you."

That was slightly stalkerish, but he decided he'd be flattered. Not creeped out. It was understandable, he supposed. Whilst her attention might have been welcome any other day, it wasn't this one. He was here to speak with Tarquin, not to get laid.

Somehow he wasn't disappointed at that fact.

He opened his eyes and looked at her in appraisal. Pretty face, black hair, blue eyes, and her body in that blue skin tight dress was just ridiculous. Okay, so he was slightly disappointed now, as said green eyes were focussed hungrily on his chest. He looked down in question as he felt like he was missing something. The sight of a sizeable sliver of toned dark brown skin peeking back at him answered his question.

Pointedly.

Well, shit. It seemed like he'd undid all of the buttons of his tunic leaving the top of his chest was exposed. He couldn't find the required effort to re-button them, his arms feeling far too sluggish when he tried to move them to the table so he could lean forward to protect his assets. Besides, she shouldn't be here anyway. She wasn't welcome to his pity party.

Terrence managed to find the friendliness to smile.

"I'm flattered that you've sought me out, but I'm here to talk to a friend," Terrence said with honest regret in his voice.

She frowned, stopping her examination of his body, and looked at him with growing interest. Her blue eyes connecting with his hazel. He could only assume that she wasn't used to being denied to find rejection not to be much of a downer.

"Who's your friend?" she asked, or rather demanded.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

Tarquin walked into the booth and almost collided with their unwanted visitor before gracefully stepping around her. She was frozen in place, just watching him. Surprisingly not out of fear, but surprise. Tarquin stopped for a few seconds, his eyes quickly assessing the room and lingering on his chest for a second, before he retook his seat. It was lucky that he hadn't bumped into her due to the fact he was holding three drinks. Two more glasses of that yellow liquid he favoured and a glass of water for.. Terrence as he quickly passed it to him after retaking his seat.

"Thank you, Tarquin," Terrence mumbled gratefully enjoying the calming chill of the water against his hands.

"Don't worry about it."

Adorned with his usual small smile.

He looked back up at the girl, hoping that she'd left, and what he saw made him want to cry. It was like the bartender but worse. Infinitely worse.

She was excited, looking between them like Christmas had come early. Like twelve months and thirty fucking days early.

"I've come across a couple male turian and female human couples, but I've never seen a male-male one before!" she exclaimed with clear relish.

What the actual fuck? Seriously?

Terrence ended up just dropping his forehead onto the table and just planned to stay there and pretend to be.. pretend to be dead until she left. Tarquin couldn't be in a relationship with a corpse after all. Maybe he'd cease to exist in her mind if he did this for long enough.

"I'm sorry to ruin your hopes, but we're just friends," Tarquin explained. Rather slowly too, like he was talking to a deranged toddler. Which by the squeal that left her as she said male-male, she was. "Just friends."

"Oh? Then why is his chest on display? Not that he should button up! He has lovely pecs from what little I can see of them," she said.

He couldn't see her expression from his self-imposed seclusion, but it sounded like it had the most smug smile. Someone kill him, please.

"... That's.. nice to know. I don't know why his chest is exposed though, as he was completely buttoned up before I left," Tarquin said with an increasingly pondering tone.

"Isn't it obvious?" The girl asked, sighing at what he could only imagine to be Tarquin's supposed ignorance in her mind. "He planned to seduce you with his sexy muscles."

"I'd just drank a bottle of whiskey and I was sweating," Terrence mumbled with growing annoyance around his mouthful of table.

"Now that your question has been answered, can you leave please?" Tarquin asked with his usual unnatural patience.

"Sure, just know that you two would look _hot_ together. _Hot._  I guarantee it," she claimed before leaving in a rush of hot air from the inside of the club. The fading sound of her heels against the metal floor was such a balm for his soul he could have wept in relief.

Terrence sighed once the door closed and Tarquin laughed. Hard.

"So, Terrence, should I be worried about any impending seduction on your part?" Tarquin asked. His continuing mirth making him increasingly aware of the pounding in his skull. Fuck, the bass in this club was overwhelming.

"No. Just no. Though if you find muscled human chests a turn-on, do tell me," Terrence sarcastically said, "I don't think I'm in a state, or I'll ever be in a state to deal with a horny, amorous turian."

"Few species can handle us," Tarquin lamented, a faint sigh escaping him as he managed to restrain the laugh Terrence could hear bubbling in his voice.

Terrence found himself reaching for the whiskey bottle out of reflex, even despite the fact it was empty. A flanging laugh erupted next to him. Tarquin was waving his radioactive looking drink, tauntingly, before he took a long drain of it.

Motherfucker. He wanted some liquor too.

The water would have to do and he took a gulp. The pounding across his temples eased slightly and he sighed in relief.

"But don't worry, you're safe from me," he added, still sounding mirthful.

"Yeah, well. Maybe I should continue with my story before you get drunk enough to test whether humans are capable," Terrence snarked.

Tarquin snorted and and it was so out of character that Terrence couldn't help but gape in surprise. He couldn't help but wonder whether his father would approve.

"It would take far more than a salarian made dextro cognac to get me that out of my mind. Maybe Hallex..." Tarquin mused to himself, sinking into a sloping position in his seat.

Now Tarquin was talking about taking the alien equivalent of E? His jaw dropped. He looked and sounded ridiculous. Terrence was tempted to try and take his drink away from him if it wasn't kinda funny.

"Anyway, continue with your story. It was proving interesting," Tarquin hastily said, straightening up and readopting his picture perfect military posture.

"Afraid your father was watching, Tarquin?" Terrence teased.

They had a brief battle of wills. Tarquin staring at him in clear indignation, and himself staring back. Trying not to be cowed by Tarquin's admittedly powerful presence or throwing the game by bursting into laughter. Though being a turian he had a natural advantage, they didn't blink after all.

What was he thinking?

"You win," Terrence acquiesced.

If any of the Reds could see them. God. They'd wonder if he'd lost his mind. Never mind the losing to a turian, but even joking around with one. Sell-out. Traitor. 

He mused to himself that it was a good thing they couldn't see him.

Any further introspection was interrupted by Tarquin clearing his throat in clear expectation.

He'd just manifested his biotics...

"My parents had impressed upon me the importance of ensuring no one knew of my biotics. I understood. There'd been a lot of cases of biotic children disappearing or being murdered by religious nuts in the news. I didn't want that to happen to me, obviously. At the time things seemed fine, to my young mind at least. My biotics were incredibly stable, easily controlled, compared to the stories you'd hear about human biotics manifesting and attacking those around them accidentally." 

How blind he had been.

"There was a week where my parents spent most of it calling someone I'd never heard of, and the atmosphere in the house was.. it was really dark," Terrence recalled, his head held in his hand, "but I hadn't noticed. I was too absorbed in spending every waking moment outside of school playing with my biotics."

"One day after school, I came home to our apartment. It was empty and deadly silent. I imagine if I'd went in my parent's room at the time it wouldn't contain their belongings, but their room had always been hallowed ground in my nine year old mind. Not to be disturbed. I -"

"Your parents abandoned you? At nine?" Tarquin asked. Maybe to turians with their perceived sense of duty, the idea of abandoning a child to them was unheard of. Perhaps not. Regardless, it was an all too common occurrence in the megapolis that was twenty-second century New York.

He nodded, staring at a red smear on the tabletop that he hadn't noticed previously. It was almost like blood. In face of Tarquin's silence, he continued on.

"I went into my room, trying not to think too much of their absence. Usually they'd tell me prior if they'd not be at home when I got back, but they hadn't."

He sighed.

"I waited all day for them to come back. I think I ended up making myself a turkey sandwich, or something, whilst I waited. I'd been hoping for  _pastelón de platano maduro._  Yellow plantain casserole. We usually had something Dominican on Fridays because my parents missed their homeland intensely," he recalled wistfully. It was better to focus on the good moments rather than the bad, it made it easier to emotionally disconnect from the sadder parts of his memories. To pretend that they hadn't happened.

"Friday came and went with no sign of them. Saturday was the same. At the time, I was living in wilful ignorance that they'd come back soon enough. I was even starting to get sick of having turkey sandwiches for dinner too, I'd tried making rice and ended up burning it."

"Then on Monday, after school, there was a knock on the door. I was excited. Ecstatic even. They were finally back and maybe I could have some of that casserole," he stopped to enjoy the brief, familiar sound of Tarquin's flanging chuckle. It was becoming as normal to him as a regular chuckle, alien flange aside.

"I ended up staying alone in the apartment for maybe a month, and then I was forced to break in to get my stuff when the clemency period on the rent ran out. It was a bit of a bitch to get locked out after school."

Tarquin looked at him dubiously.

"You broke into an apartment, at nine years old?" He asked.

"You'd be surprised what a panicking, frustrated biotic child can achieve when he's been locked out of the only home he's known," Terrence countered. 

Tarquin's face seemed to soften, the tightness in his mandibles which he hadn't even noticed, gradually easing. Terrence blamed the warmth his kind regard spread through him on the whiskey.

He didn't mention how that had cemented his abandonment in his mind and how he'd spent an hour sobbing and heaving until he'd been sick. And that was before he'd began to use his biotics to try and break the window. Or try to, maybe it was that lack of security and confidence he'd felt then that had resulted in his growing loss of control of his biotics. They grew unresponsive after that day. He'd keep that to himself, some things he couldn't share.

"I think I ended up using some ridiculous combination of a Warp and Lift on the window lock after about fifteen minutes of fumbling. I'm not even sure how I managed the Warp... I feel sorry for whatever engineer was given the job of fixing the window I'd used to get in."

"I'd foolishly thought that because I had biotics I was perfectly capable of looking after myself. I didn't call the police because it was an open secret that the police in Queens were corrupt and due to the fact that I'd have to tell them that my parents had abandoned me."

"Do humans not provide any provision for orphans, or children in similar positions?" Tarquin inquired. "I thought they did."

"Oh they do, but I was too prideful to consider an orphanage. Serious, wilful ignorance, Tarquin," he rasped, his throat dry from the seeming non-stop talking. He took a sip of his water.

"So I ended up on the streets. A backpack and seventy dollars to my name. Thankfully, I'd adopted my parents' frugal approach to money and I didn't end up blowing it all on I don't know.. motherfucking marbles or something just as useless. The first few nights were the hardest."

_ come here little boy _

_ where's your mama? _

_ don't worry i'll look after you _

_ see that, Davis? what a pretty little black kid _

He shuddered. Damn his parents for abandoning him, but he couldn't help but thank them for passing their tendencies on to him. His steadfast self-reliance and reclusiveness had saved his life in those early days from the more unstable homeless.

"They were pretty bad. I spent the first few weeks skulking around the mouth of alleyways, terrified of the trash that occupied the back streets and alleyways of Queens. I even got offers from a few people passing by the alleys to come with them, but I trusted them even less. Between the money I had, the small amount of dried food I'd brought with me and school lunches, I ate okay-ish. There was a church nearby that offered showers to the homeless, so I took advantage of that. One of the priests was kind enough to wash my clothes for me. I stole from some of the nearby convenience stores when the hunger became too much, which only happened a few times and I was never caught. I spent those first few weeks sleeping  behind dumpsters for fuck's sake. It was really fucking nasty but I was a very wiry child and it beat sleeping  _inside_ them and possibly being found by a homeless person in the middle of the night," he said 

"What would they have done?" Tarquin hesitantly asked.

He turned and stared him in the eye. Unblinking.

Unfortunately biology won out.

"Well, most homeless are mentally unstable; chasing the next high, or are already high out of their mind. You know? But they're generally the easiest to deal with, at least in New York. Even if they mutter creepy shit under their breath or try and grab you when you try and creep past they're thankfully too lethargic, too out of their fucking minds to chase you. Even if they have more than a foot on you and at least ninety pounds on you... and they make you tremble with the strangely _intent_  look they tend to give you," Terrence mumbled under his breath.

"You may never get used to that, but you can _deal_  with it. No, it's the normal people who offer you help, and never stop.. stop caring because they bring attention to you. Attention you'd rather live without as you don't want replacement parents. You loved the ones you already had, and you still do, but they fucked you over. Why open yourself to be fucked over by strangers?" Terrence said in a slightly hysterical rush. He stopped to breath, to calm himself down before he possibly lost his temper. Cried even. He'd had no idea how much it'd weighed on him, it had always been something he had done everything he could to forget. Something to be hidden. He'd never spoken of those early days to anyone. Not even to the people he was closest to in the Reds.

He had some of his water to busy himself. Feeling far too exposed, too weak, under Tarquin's gaze.

"You don't have to continue if you don't want to, Terrence," he said. 

Terrence shook his head. He'd started, and he would finish.

A gloved hand descended on his shoulder, a three fingered grip squeezing the ball of his shoulder lightly. He mustered a weak smile, not at all put off by the contact, and Tarquin returned it.

He continued on, Tarquin's silent support proving to be motivating.

"And worse still, it's the seemingly everyday people who enter the alleyways you have to watch out for," he added quietly.

_why are you here alone?_

_where are you going?_

_surely your parents are wondering where you are?_

_his involuntary freeze and down-turned mouth proved telling._

_the man with his unnaturally perfect features from cosmetic surgery, typical nouveau riche, smiled. he'd realized he was homeless._

_ come here now _

_ do that again, you little nigger shit, and I swear I will fucking kill you _

He massaged his throat unconsciously. Tarquin caught the movement and his eyes seemed to become almost glacial.

"Shortly after I turned 10, this was my sixth or seventh week on the streets, I ran into a businessman near LaGuardia Airport. I was used the remaining daytime to search for a less homeless filled place to sleep. I thought nothing of it, quickly apologizing before continuing on. The sun was setting so it was starting to get dark and I figured it'd be best to start looking for somewhere to sleep. He followed me."

"And what did he do?" Tarquin asked. A cold, barbed tone entering his speech. His grip remained just as light, thankfully.

_no more biting my hands, do you understand?_

_good, you're silent now, you're coming wi-_   


"He waited until I entered an alleyway and he easily overpowered me, and then he gagged me. He then tried to take me with him," he coldly stated and Tarquin's grip for a split second dug into his shoulder. He ignored the brief pain.

"Sorry. Tried?" Tarquin asked after easing his grip.

"I killed him," he replied, voice still distant and cold, "He seemed to think that removing my voice," his ability to scream for help, "would make me compliant. I pushed him into a wall and he snapped his neck against a drain pipe."

"Humans aren't that fragile. Biotics?" Tarquin asked after a momentary silence.

"Biotics. Though the motherfucker had one hell of a limp neck. Punk-ass bitch motherfucker..." He muttered angrily under his breath.

"Punk-ass?... Motherfucker?" Tarquin said in complete confusion.

"Punk-ass bitch motherfucker, Tarquin. He was a punk-ass bitch motherfucker. Say it after me Tarquin.  Punk-ass. Bitch. Mother. Fucker." Terrence recited with a growing smile in face of Tarquin's disbelief. Count on the turian to be more unbalanced by curses than a child killing an adult male.

"No thank you, Terrence. It's incredibly generous of you, but I'll allow you to keep your monopoly on exotic cursing." Tarquin demurred with a laugh.

"Fine, fine. All the more for me," he replied with a small chuckle. He felt so damn at ease around Tarquin, it was kind of scaring him.

"Well, I killed the punk-ass bitch motherfucker and I ran. I ran to an abandoned, run-down building near the airport and broke in through one of the side windows, my biotics deciding to respond to me for once without needing mortal danger. A quick Pull on the lock, and then a careful Lift on myself and I was in. I stayed there for my remaining time on the streets. It had electricity and hot water, luckily enough. For food, I'd scavenge the trash cans near the airport at night. All of the money people lost around the airport proved useful in getting transport to school. The airport was kind of far away."

Terrence chuckled. Those couple of months in that building had been pretty damn blissful in comparison to the earlier two.

"Anyway, it was more or less plain sailing from then on, survival wise at least. I became obsessed with learning things on the terminal in the building because I didn't know how long the school was going to look the other way when my parents hadn't been able to come to any of the parents meetings."

He paused to finish his water.

"Then they came," he said with slight amusement.

"They?" Tarquin asked.

"The Tenth Street Reds. A street gang. They became my family for the next seven and a half years."

"I don't believe you just welcomed them with open arms... did you?" Tarquin mused to himself.

"No. I kept running into one or two of them as I came back from school. I don't know what they were doing in Queens, since I now know they operate in Manhattan, but I'm fairly sure that they were scoping out prospective members."

"They were sharp. They recognised the battered backpack I kept on me at all times, the fact that I was very good at disappearing and they took to just giving me friendly smiles when they saw me. They knew a homeless child when they saw one."

"Eventually, I caved. Eventually being maybe after near thirty encounters with friendly people dressed in red, and I spoke back to one of them when spoken to, for once. And that was it really."

"That simple?" Tarquin asked.

"That simple. It didn't hit me until I started spending time with them how lonely I was. I'd slowly become incredibly withdrawn at school, what I was going through made it difficult to be happy, or pretend to be. Children are frighteningly perceptive. Anyway, I stayed with some of the older members who owned apartments though I did return to my place near the airport occasionally. I'd become a little attached to that place..."

"So I imagine, being in a gang, even with as young as you were you had to pull your weight eventually?" Tarquin slowly asked.

Terrence nodded absently. 

"When I wasn't in school, I was helping them break into buildings. Burglary... arson on some occasions. They'd asked me to drop out, but some things like your parents telling you education is everything are too ingrained. Looking back I'm surprised that they didn't try and pressure me to drop out. All the crimes I was responsible for didn't result in any deaths. None that I know of. One time, when I was fourteen, they took me to intimidate someone who owed them money. I beat him a little, I wasn't really doing much damage. I was one hell of a skinny teenager. Then, they asked me to use my biotics. He broke quickly after that, but they never asked me to do that again, intimidate someone. I had been... rather brutal. Slamming, lifting and pulling him about. It wasn't pretty."

"Did you kill him?" Tarquin asked surprisingly calmly.

"Nah, but I imagine he wished he was dead in the end. They were genuinely afraid of me for a while after that.  It was easy to forget that whilst I was younger than most of them, I could easily rip them apart at the molecular level if I ever got angry enough. It was especially easy to forget that when all I seemed to use my biotics for were little things like breaking locks or lifting people through windows. They gradually phased me out of any operations by the time I was fifteen and I ended up going to school full time, a member, but not a gang member anymore. One of the older members, a guy called Quinn, posed as my father for anything that required a parent. That was fun. I graduated when I was eighteen with a GPA of 3.4 and my SAT was pretty good, 1930. I hadn't made any plans for college, I know that all students are expected to have a physical done upon enrolment and I had no intention of joining the military as it's compulsory for biotics. I honestly would have done better if I'd participated more, but I was a real loner at school. I ended up gaining a reputation for being distant and intense. Little did they know that my anger would result in me glowing blue. A couple of weeks after, the hideout I was staying at was raided by the police and I was given an ultimatum of prison or the military when they discovered I was a biotic."

He paused for a second to clear his throat.

"I'm in a very unique position due to the nature of my biotics. Most biotics spend their puberty in a training facility and get an amp fitted as soon as possible, whilst I hadn't. So there had been expectations that I'd be weaker than them. With that not being the case, and me requiring anger to accomplish anything more than a Lift or a Pull, I'll be getting one of the more experimental amps, the L3, fitted once I've mastered my control. Less risk of complications due to my age from the L3. I could apparently be one of the most powerful biotics that humanity has if I master myself. It's why I was put on Captain Anderson's ship almost immediately after boot camp in hopes he'd whip me into shape."

Tarquin seemed to be digesting everything.

"What about the xenophobia? You haven't explained that," he asked with a hint of confusion.

"Oh that. Well, when I'd first joined they were fond of talking about aliens. How they killed humans, enslaved humans, how humanity was better off alone... stuff like that. And eventually I began to parrot their beliefs, and believe them. I'd wanted desperately to fit in. I didn't want to end up on the streets. Alone," he admitted.

"Not again."

It was silent for a few minutes before Tarquin spoke.

"You did well," Tarquin admitted.

"What?" Terrence uttered, gaining a faint sense of whiplash from the speed at which he'd turned to face Tarquin.

"Crimes aside, you did well. Lesser people would have been broken from your experiences. Or perhaps wouldn't be here at all."

And he took his free hand and gripped it into a fist, then placing it on his chest before giving off a standard Alliance salute.

He returned it.

"Thank you," Terrence said, dipping his head in acknowledgement. Thanks a lot for listening, it meant a lot.

"It was an honour," Tarquin gravely stated with a forbidding expression. He looked a lot like his father in that moment that Terrence couldn't help but laugh.

"Good. I was hoping that would make you laugh," he said with a smile, squeezing his shoulder one more time before standing up.

"You're leaving?" Terrence asked. He sounded fucking despondent. Like someone had announced that it was time for Terrence to go back to the streets.

Tarquin stopped mid-drink, attempting to finish his third glass of the night and peered down at him.

"We're?" He corrected.

It was kind of presumptuous of him, but he could forgive him, he thought, as he stood up in turn. He was his friend after all.

"We're." Terrence confirmed.

 


	6. Weirded Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update?

The outside of the club was just as crowded as the interior. Terrence parted his way through the crowd at the entrance, brushing shoulders with glamorous asari whose outfits probably cost more than his annual salary, avoiding eye contact with the occasional turian in casual clothing, and fastidiously ignoring the existence of the odd salarian here and there. 

Tarquin wasn’t immediately behind him, for whatever reason, and Terrence took the chance to lean against the smooth glowing curve of the club’s corner, far to the right of the queue as he waited. He cringed at the brief spike in his headache from the bass resonating through the walls, and he quickly removed his body from contact with the wall, instead walking over to the neighbouring restaurant and sitting in an empty pavilion. A curse involuntarily left him as he remembered that he was back on duty soon. Six hours according to his omnitool.

He cursed again, staring with betrayal at the neon orange clock. A faint turian chuckle emerged from his left.

“Do all humans swear like you?” Tarquin sidled alongside him in his loping strides. 

“It’s a gift,” Terrence said, “what took you so long?”

Tarquin lifted his mandibles with a small, but suggestive, flick.

“The bartender, I forgot her name, Danila? It has a ‘d’ in it…” 

Terrence snorted, catching the eye of a passing human and asari couple who gave him and his companion curious looks as they entered the restaurant.

“That was entirely unintentional,” he said, a gleam in his blue eyes, “she -”

“Wanted you,” Terrence said, his delivery deadpan. 

Tarquin lowered himself into the seat opposite him. 

“Jealous?”

Terrence snorted, in clear exaggeration, and shook his head, appreciatively eyeing the buxom human waitress coming their way. 

Once he’d taken his order, he sighed under his breath, feeling oddly jilted that Tarquin had not reacted at all to the purposely forward exchange between himself and the waitress.

Looking up only made him feel more uncomfortable. Tarquin knew. Was he completely transparent, or was the turian some goddamned psychic? It was most likely both.

“More drinks, I think” he stated, ignoring the more than knowing glint to Tarquin’s eyes. “Is that cool with you?”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Tarquin said, frowning.

“You seem uncomfortable. Is it me?" Tarquin asked, his head minutely tilted in curiosity. Typical Tarquin. Letting him make the first move, trying to let him not feel pressured. Being kind. Why did he have to be so fucking nice?

“Nah… no, I.. fuck.” He stumbled to find a way to articulate what he wanted to say without sounding melodramatic or weak. 

He spoke quietly, hoping that no neighbouring customers would hear a single word of what he said.

“This isn’t easy for me. I mean, I’ve went from not liking any aliens, to telling one alien things I’ve never told _no one_. Shit… not even the people I was closest to in The Reds knew anything that I’d told you. And now I’m starting to think that I might be attracted to one. What the fuck is wrong with me?” 

Even with his dark skin tone, Terrence prayed that he wasn’t blushing. There was only so much embarrassment he could take in a single day.

Tarquin stood up, a somewhat blank expression on his already inscrutable features, and placed a credit chit on their table. Terrence silently mourned the steak he’d never have.

“Walk with me.”

The Citadel never seemed to sleep, not unlike New York really, the city of perpetual night-time - the skyscrapers were so tall and densely packed that they blotted the majority of the sky. It was these comparisons that allowed Terrence to ignore the rapid thumping of his heart. Had he fucked up this friendship before it could have even begun? 

Tarquin silently led them back to the section of the horticultural gardens in the Presidium that they’d sat in hours ago. It felt more like a lifetime ago. 

If the situation wasn’t so tense, he’d have marvelled at the fluorescent yellow leaves of the alien flora surrounding them. They’d been a bland ochre colour during the day cycle.

Surprisingly, Tarquin didn’t shy away from sitting next to him as he’d done earlier. Terrence found himself about to breathe again.

The silence became almost oppressive before finally Tarquin took a deep breath and spoke. 

“I actually didn’t know you were attracted to me,” he said with a simultaneous downward movement of his brow ridges and mandibles. There was palpable worry in his voice, and Terrence had never considered the possibility that maybe Tarquin was just as uncomfortable as him.

“I really just thought you were jealous of the attention I’d gotten from that asari.”

“Never would have thought that you’d be attracted to a turian,” Tarquin mumbled, a slight blue flush to the hide of his neck not covered by the cowl of his armour. 

Terrence’s lips quirked into a faint smirk.

“I’m pretty sure it’s just you, just Mr Super Nice Tarquin Victus,” he said. He didn’t think it would have been particularly flattering to say that he was so deprived of personal intimacy, that wasn’t sex, that he was more than willing to fuck a turian just to feel that sensation of someone caring about him.

“So are we still good?” 

Tarquin nodded absently, seeming to be stuck in his own thoughts.

“We’re good.”

Despite his words, the tension thickened once more.

“So are we just going to sit here awkwardly, Terrence?” 

Terrence sat up, waking from his light doze.

“What do you expect me to do? I’m not going to proposition you,” he said, shaking his head at the idea. “That would be stu -”

Tarquin sighed and turned towards him.

His mouth suddenly found itself covered by the surprisingly leathery texture of Tarquin’s mouth on his. A gloved hand came to rest on the back of his head as he parted his lips and touched his tongue to Tarquin’s closed mouth-plates. Terrence would have to ask where Tarquin had learned how to kiss, because when his long, coarse tongue snaked into Terrence’s mouth, it transformed a rather shit kiss into a very memorable one. Tarquin tasted like booze. Booze, spicy heat, and the alien taste of his saliva - sweet and herbal tasting with a bland aftertaste. Terrence tilted his head to the side, wanting to deepen the kiss, and Tarquin followed. There was a surprising amount of give to his mouth, as the plates slightly twisted and contorted with every motion they made. Tarquin gently pushed at his chest with his free hand, rumbling low in his chest as he did so, not unlike a giant cat. Not only was he a giant space raptor, he was some sort of strange raptor cat too. Terrence eventually took the hint, his chuckling muffled by the kiss, and laid back down against the bench, spreading his legs. Tarquin laid between them, and gently settled his heavy weight on top of him.

Their subsequent kisses became ravenous, desperate even, as they continued to swap saliva. Terrence could have sworn that Tarquin growled in his mouth when he secured his thighs on the hips of Tarquin’s armour, because he couldn’t imagine what else could have caused a brief, sharp stab of fear to run down his spine. 

When their lips came apart for the final time, Terrence found himself stuck in the animal glow of Tarquin’s irises, looming above him, in the low artificial lighting.

“Maybe I wanted you to ask,” Tarquin mumbled, giving him one final brief kiss.

Terrence didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. His lips still tingled with the heat of Tarquin’s saliva.

“How’d you learn to kiss like that?”

“Asari,” he said, “it’s like a rite of passage amongst turians fresh out of boot camp to have sex with an asari.”

Tarquin remained laid on top of him, his breath blowing its heat onto his lips.

“Are you going to get off of me?”

“No. You have questions, don’t you?”

“I do,” Terrence admitted. “Are you even attracted to me?”

“Are you even attracted to me?” Tarquin asked in turn.

Terrence gave the question some thought. Looks weren’t really that important to him, but that wouldn’t be the most tactful answer. He wasn’t very _physically_ attracted to Tarquin, no. The teeth were terrifying, though he was surprised he hadn’t encounter them during their kiss. Apart from that, everything else was just alien and didn’t really do anything for him. His tongue was fucking bomb though. Emotionally, hell yes, and that was what was terrifying. He’d never been good at forming emotional attachments to people, he hadn’t wanted to, but to grow so close to a person within hours of meeting them was alien in itself. 

“Not really.” Terrence said. “Not in the physical sense, at least.”

“Same. It doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy kissing you though,” he admitted, slipping an arm underneath his back and pulling him in for a kiss.

“I don’t enjoy the act because I find you attractive, Terrence, I enjoy it because of the fact that it’s you… and it does feel pretty good. That sounds horrible, but I hope that it makes sense?”

Oddly, Terrence understood,

“Perfect sense,” he said, keeping it simple.

He’d have liked to keep it simple, but his drunken, lusty mind took over. Likely due to the neglected semi he was hiding in his Alliance blues.

“So… are you going to fuck me or what?”

Tarquin shook his head, whether in disbelief or refusal, Terrence wasn’t sure.

“In your Alliance uniform? I’m certain that’s some form of war crime by our peoples’ standards,” Tarquin said, a slight grin on his features, as he got to his feet. 

“But no, I just want a warm body next to mine tonight. Someone I care for, you know? Not just a quick fuck with a random face I’d picked up from a bar.”

Again, Terrence understood.

Tarquin led the way in a much more comfortable silence to a hotel on the Presidium. It was a somewhat lavish asari affair. All sleek blue metallic surfaces and smooth curves. Terrence suddenly felt incredibly self-conscious, feeling that the few human employees in this asari run establishment would know that he just spent maybe twenty minutes making out with a turian, but either they didn’t know what he’d just done or didn’t care. His spine slackened with relief in the lift.

“Relax,” Tarquin said.

They finally came to a room on the fourth floor, and Tarquin swiped his omnitool against a keypad. The door unlocked with a click, and they entered the room. 

It was pretty spacious with light decoration. A couple of sleek cream couches around a large screen, an elaborate kitchen unit, and a large cubical shower partitioned away from the open plan. It looked expensive. 

“My mother knew the asari matriarch who owns this hotel. So they let me stay for free in case you were wondering,” Tarquin said.

“Knew?”

“My mother passed away when I was fifteen.”

Terrence just nodded, not thinking he’d appreciate an apology or sombre moment. He wouldn’t.

“Where’s the bedroom?” Terrence asked. 

The slight frown on Tarquin’s face disappeared and he led the way to the room next to the shower.

They stripped in silence. Terrence finished first, quickly sliding underneath the covers of the king-sized bed. Marvelling at the softness of the mattress, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so relaxed, so comfortable. He looked up at Tarquin, who had just taken off his chestplate, fascinated by the tightly corded muscle of his light brown torso with its intermittent grey plating. Looking carefully, he could notice that his facial markings continued along the sides of his neck and ended where his cowl began. His waist was rather narrow before flaring into wider hips that were revealed as Tarquin began to fiddle with the marvel of engineering that his greaves were. Finally, he was naked and Terrence was left baffled.

He had no genitalia? Terrence hadn’t considered the possibility of Tarquin having female genitalia, but he was sure he wouldn’t freak out. Much. Who knew how space raptors worked sexually?

“So, Tarquin… where’s your dick?” 

“Safe. It’s all internal,” Tarquin said with a teasing smile. “In fact, if you show me yours, I’ll show you how to show mine.”

Terrence lifted the covers up, and Tarquin slid in beside him, bringing a huge amount of body heat with him. After gathering some pillows to place under his cowl, Tarquin spoke.

“Do you mind if I get closer, Terrence?”

“Not at all.”

Tarquin moved closer so that they were shoulder to shoulder, and Terrence leant forward, thanking Tarquin for taking the initiative when his arm wrapped around his shoulder and pulled Terrence into him.

Terrence took Tarquin’s free hand in his and put it on his flaccid cock, stifling a groan at the feel of Tarquin’s incredibly hot hand.

“This is mine,” he said, snickering under his breath. 

“I never would have guessed.” Tarquin gave an idle squeeze. Part of.. a large part of Terrence squirmed, but he forced himself to trust Tarquin. He wouldn’t hurt him. Tarquin pulled the covers off so he could get a look.

It was a strange sight, his flaccid cock in that alien triadic grip. Tarquin’s hands were massive and his digits were appropriately proportioned. It was really, really strange to watch. Tarquin’s inspection was both visual and tactile, slowly coaxing him towards an erection with gentle pumps and light squeezes. When he was fully erect, at a sizeable eight inches, Tarquin lightly touched his balls, almost in question.

“Testicles,” Terrence said gruffly.

Tarquin moved back to his dick like he’d been burnt. 

“Sorry about that,” Tarquin said.

Terrence, thinking about the mood, didn’t comment. Probably some weird turian thing.

“Hmm… it’s smooth and dark brown. Soft too, even when erect. Very similar in ways, very different in others.”

Tarquin briefly removed his hand to show him a plated region on his crotch that looked oddly like a pussy. It was slightly moist and everything and his brain just about short-circuited. Space raptors, man…

“Put your hand there,” Tarquin said.

Terrence was hesitant, but did as requested. 

“Stroke, but don’t put your fingers inside.”

Once he started rubbing, Tarquin went back to idly stroking his cock. It only took a few seconds for something to begin to emerge. Tarquin’s dickhead was bullet-shaped. The differences didn’t end there, however. The shaft got progressively broader as it continued to emerge, ending with a thick base. Looking at it now that it had all left its hiding spot, the whole thing was blue, incredibly slick and ribbed of all things. It was like a really big, slightly gross, exotic dildo. He’d estimate Tarquin to be maybe ten inches and thick. 

“So?”

“It’s.. it’s.. blue? Wet? I don’t know, Tarquin, where do you want me to begin?”

“Stroking it would be fine for now,” Tarquin promised, moving his hips towards Terrence’s hand.

Terrence gave a minute shudder at the growly tone Tarquin had taken in his arousal.

It was incredibly hot and slick in his hand; it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Despite the whole weird factor, it was a lot easier to stroke than his own due to the natural lubricant. After a couple of strokes, Tarquin’s cock suddenly dribbled a lot of translucent precum from the slit. Terrence stopped.

“I hope you do know that we’re as equally strange to each other.”

“I can imagine” Terrence said, feeling embarrassed that he’d been so transparent with regards to how weirded out he was. Tarquin wasn’t showing any signs of being uncomfortable stroking him, and here he was acting like a fucking virgin.

“We can stop if you want.”

“No.”

Tarquin took it upon himself to distract Terrence by turning and kissing him, continuing to stroke him. They slowly made out until Terrence came with a grunt into Tarquin’s hand.

“I want to watch you get yourself off, Tarquin,” Terrence said.

Tarquin took one hand and placed it at the bulbous base, squeezing it with a groan, and stroked his shaft slowly. 

“The base is sensitive?”

“It’s a knot. It’s sensitive to incentivise tying. I’m on hormonal suppressants though, a military thing, so it doesn’t swell on orgasm.”

Terrence found himself very weirded out again, but continued to watch otherwise. 

Tarquin’s orgasm came with fanfare in comparison with his own rather quiet one. Tarquin just about roared, sending a thrill of some form of atavistic fear through Terrence, and his legs locked up as his cock spurted spurt after spurt of thick purple cum onto his muscled chest. Tarquin stroked out the remaining drops with a low rumbling purr that helped to calm Terrence’s racing heart. 

That was pretty hot going by the growing stiffness in his crotch.

“Damn,” he muttered. 

Tarquin smirked, preening it almost seemed, as he cleaned himself and Terrence with some conveniently placed serviettes.

Once they were clean, Tarquin pulled Terrence into his chest with a sigh. Something big and throbbing landed in the cleft of his ass, drooling its slickness.

“You’re still hard,” Terrence said, both slightly horrified and largely impressed by his lack of refractory time.

“I am.”

“I’m going to sleep. I’m on duty tomorrow.”

Tarquin just buried his head in Terrence’s neck with a grunt.


	7. Farewell, For Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on a roll.
> 
> Here's some more smut to make up for my atrocious updating schedule. Tell me what you think in the comments!

When Terrence woke up, the immediate thing that caught his attention was how at ease he felt. He could only describe how he felt as: amazing. It felt like the weight of an entire galaxy had just been lifted off of his neck, let alone his shoulders. Even with the slight hangover he had, he felt on top of the world. 

Opening his eyes, greeted him to the sight of Tarquin’s neck. As Terrence slowly became aware of his own limbs again, he realized that he was lying on top of him, with his arms wrapped around his neck, and Tarquin had kept him secured to his body with a heavy hand on one of the globes of his ass. He also became aware of another limb. His dick was hard and rubbing against the hide, thankfully not the plates, of Tarquin’s lower stomach. 

Looking to the side, in the direction of a window, showed that the day cycle had yet to begin. It was still fairly dark on the Presidium. His slight movement must have grabbed Tarquin’s attention, because he stretched his legs a little before spreading them further and holding Terrence tighter to his body. 

“It’s 4:56. You’ve only slept for about three hours. Is that normal for humans?” Tarquin said, his own voice low.

“Eight or nine hours is the norm for a civilian. Four to six in the military. I feel good though,” Terrence said.

“Do you mind letting me go and use the bathroom? I need to piss,” Terrence said, already feeling apologetic that he’d have to break their close contact.

As Tarquin raised his hand and sat up, Terrence slid over to the side of the bed and stood up. His hangover finally really hit him then, a sharp jab of pain through his temple that made him stumble a little.

“Holy shit,” he grumbled.

Ignoring Tarquin’s quiet chuckle, he slowly ambled his way to the partitioned area in the front room with the shower. In the partition, there was a sink next to the shower along with an assortment of toiletries in a stylish cabinet display that spanned the entire wall. After dealing with his bladder, he went back to the toiletry rack. Most of the products he didn’t recognize, quickly ignoring them, one by one, until he found the rows containing human (or asari?) toiletries. He quickly brushed his teeth and washed his face before staring at his naked body in the mirror. There was something different.

He was a good-looking guy. A little on the pretty side, but he was slowing growing out of that. Tall - on the lanky side, but he had some nice muscles. He’d have to cut his hair soon, with how his hair was starting to curl. Hopefully Pressly wouldn’t have to cut it again, as the man was a disaster with a pair of clippers. There was also the added problem that they didn’t like each other. Terrence still suspected that he’d ruined his hair out of spite. Chakwas had had to to fix his hairline since she was the only person he really got on with aside from Anderson.  
Focussing more on his face, he saw it. He’d never been a smiler, more of a frowner. It looked strange to see the tiny upwards curl on his lips. ‘Resting bitch face nigga’ as Elise, one of the members of the Reds he missed the most, had affectionately nicknamed him. His pride had ended up being rankled for years when that stuck. He laughed a little in memory, stood a little taller, and walked back to the bedroom.

Tarquin immediately closed his omnitool upon seeing him and opened his arms in question. Terrence slid into his embrace, smirking when he felt Tarquin’s hand rest on his ass again.

Terrence buried his face back in the soft hide, and it was hard to believe that any part of his body was soft, of Tarquin’s neck with a low sigh, once more enjoying the feeling of the heat of his body against his own. Tarquin gave a low groan of his own, the barest hint of a growl emerging, and the vibrations of his multi-tonal voice were pleasant enough to encourage Terrence to close his eyes. He didn’t want to fall asleep again, but being able to just lay here, on top of Tarquin, and just enjoy the feeling of another person with him, caring for him, was something he was going to take full advantage of. 

Eventually, Tarquin’s other hand ended up on the other buttcheek.

“Is there a reason your hands are there?” His voice was muffled against the slightly pebbled flesh of Tarquin’s neck.

“Honestly, it’s pretty satisfying to grip, and you seem to enjoy it,” Tarquin said.

His voice adopted a hushed tone.

“I can’t believe you said that you wanted me to fuck you.”

“What was so hard to believe about that?” Terrence asked, starting to worry. “I don’t have any regrets about last night, I can assure you of that.”

Tarquin nodded.

“I don’t doubt that. It’s just..”

His hands spread his cheeks far apart and a thick finger rubbed against his hole slowly.

“I’d never be able to fit in here,” he murmured.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be so big.” Which was kind of stupid considering the rest of him. “But it won’t be completely impossible, but not without a lot of time, some dildos, and a lot of lube. I haven’t been fucked by a guy in months, maybe even a year. I’m pretty tight back there now.”

Tarquin kept rubbing against his hole, causing Terrence to involuntarily squeeze Tarquin’s neck which provoked a moan from him.

“I’m sensitive there,” Tarquin groaned.

“Turians are weird,” Terrence said with a laugh. "Keep rubbing.”

Tarquin resumed with an amused sound.

“We’re weird? We don’t stretch our asses out of shape to get fucked,” Tarquin said, trying to sound snide and letting out a quiet whimper when Terrence began to knead the back of his neck.

“You don’t?” Terrence shrugged, biting his tongue to stifle the laugh in his throat. “It feels pretty good. Bigger dicks are obviously more painful, but they can feel good if the person doesn’t fuck like they’re trying to maul you.”

Tarquin seemed baffled at the idea.

“No. The amount we can stretch by is limited by our plating. It’s a rare turian who can actually take another turian’s cock up their ass.”

“Then you have something to look forward to then. Humans are very good at stretching.”

“The next time we meet, hopefully we’ll have a longer time together. We’ll open me up until I can take all of you.

“All of me?” Tarquin shook his head in disbelief. “I doubt that.”

“Yeah, nig -, I mean, yeah, all of you. It shouldn’t be too hard with all the pre you squirt all over the place. I’ll probably end up with a goddamn river inside of me.”

“Our females don’t self-lubricate,” Tarquin grit out. 

There was a dancing humour in his eyes, betraying how annoyed he’d sounded, so Terrence joked right back.

“You have my sympathies.”

“But if the idea of fucking me turns you off so much, the alternative is I could fuck you, but I’m starting to get the feeling you’ve never had anal sex before,” Terrence said. He hoped that Tarquin caught the unsaid ‘or have any interest in males either’.

“I don’t think I’d like that, Terrence,” Tarquin said, stopping his rubbing and moving Terrence from his neck to make eye contact with him. There was an unmistakable tone of diplomacy in his voice. “And I didn’t say I wouldn’t fuck you, I’m just wary how we’d go about accomplishing that.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not offended,” he quickly assured. “It’s better we talk about what we like than potentially offend each other.”

“It’s alright though. I won’t mind bottoming for you when the time comes. I’ll help you join the legions of ass lovers across the Earth.”

Tarquin snorted, seeming a little unconvinced.

“You’re not into males, are you?” 

“No, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t released tension with them. There aren’t many turian females outside of the home systems and colonies, and fraternization is allowed in the turian military, just as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the mission. It’s pretty common for turian males, particularly those working in Council space or the Terminus Systems, to help each other get off.”

Seeming to predict his question, Tarquin cut across him.

“Female turians have territorial streaks,” he explained.

Tarquin started rubbing against his ring again.

“Give me your hand,” Terrence said.

Terrence’s hand wasn’t small - he had a decently sized palm and long fingers, but Tarquin’s was huge. It didn’t entirely dwarf his, but it made his seem small in comparison. Tarquin’s fingers were at least twice as thick as his individual ones, and a good deal longer. The knuckles reminded Terrence oddly of marbles. They were so bulbous, and again he had to fight the urge to chuckle. His talons were completely cut, so it was no wonder that Terrence hadn’t freaked out last night. Completely, at least.

“Why don’t you have talons?”

It was like Terrence had turned on a switch by asking that question. Suddenly, Tarquin sounded like a clone of his father again. That quiet dignity and self-assurance that had made Terrence envy him so much when they’d first met. Now, he slightly missed the quiet kindness that had characterised Tarquin after the few drinks they’d had.

“I’m the only person on my squad of thirty with training in explosives handling. Not all bombs and improvised devices can be handled with an omnitool. Some require a manual approach, and talons would get in the way of that. In the backwaters, you’d be very lucky to find even a simple interface on most bombs used there, just wiring and switches. It’s a dying art.”

It sounded rehearsed.

“I see,” Terrence said. An idea struck him.

He took Tarquin’s finger into his mouth, ignoring the brief expression of distaste that crossed him, and sucked.

“What are - the rumours are true then?”

Terrence’s voice was muffled around his thick finger. The skin of his finger tasted like metal with a slight hint of a musky sweetness. It wasn’t bad.

“Rumours? Rumours about me?” 

“Rumours about humans. Apparently you like to do a lot of things with your mouths,” Tarquin said conspiratorially. 

Terrence hadn’t sucked a dick in a while, and Tarquin’s finger was as thick at the knuckle as some, so it wasn’t a surprise to him when he had to fight a gag when he went deeper down his finger, swirling his tongue as he maintained the suction.

Oddly enough,Tarquin moaned.

“Oh Spirits… they were right!”

Tarquin’s other hand came up and cupped his bottom lip, groaning at the feel of its fullness around his finger.

“This is weird. Really good, but weird,” Tarquin whined. 

Terrence came off of his saliva glistening finger with a laugh.

“We suck other things too. If you want to find out..” Terrence briefly hesitated, wondering if this was asking too much. “Shit, man, will this weird you out?”

“Ask. I’m fairly sure I know what you mean.”

“If you want me to suck your dick, can you finger my ass?” Terrence asked, making eye contact with the base of Tarquin's cowl.

He didn’t say anything, simply directing Terrence to straddle his chest. After giving Terrence’s semi a stroke, he turned him so he was facing his crotch. The plates at his groin were moist and slightly parted.

Terrence’s face lit up in a smile at the fact that Tarquin wanted this more than he was letting on.

As Terrence slowly trailed his fingers, falling back to his old experience with women and treating the opening a little like a pussy. When his tongue licked across the opening, streaking across the emerging head of Tarquin’s cock, the finger that had been in his mouth pressed against his hole, testing.

Terrence took satisfaction in Tarquin’s low growling moans, relieved that he was actually enjoying this, and took the tapered head of Tarquin’s dick into his mouth as the shaft began to extend behind it. He groaned around the musky sweet taste of his flesh as the finger finally began to sink inside of him. It’d been too long since he’d been with a guy.

A faint pressure descended on his head as Tarquin’s other hand fell on top of his head, gently cradling it as his finger began to move further into his hole. Terrence complimented his motion by taking a bit more of his cock into his mouth, cataloguing the textures as his tongue moved along the thickly ridged underside to the more lightly ridged top with its bulging veins. The idea of those ridges in his ass, rubbing against his prostate, and they would with how thick Tarquin was, made him squeeze in desire around Tarquin’s first knuckle which had been slowly coaxed through his sphincter. Tarquin’s cock was still gross, but the good kind of gross. Privately, Terrence thought its quasi-skinless appearance belonged on an animal, but that could be his human bias showing. For all he knew, other alien races kept all their junk internally too.

“Did you just squeeze me?” When Terrence slurped an affirmative around his thick piece, he began to slowly move his finger in and out. 

“You’re so tight and hot in here. Spirits… do you think you can really take me?” Tarquin gasped again, in a mixture of desire and surprise, as Terrence flexed again.

Terrence lifted off of Tarquin, and began to idly stroke him.

“Definitely. Curl your finger a little towards my dick,” Terrence said.

When Tarquin’s finger brushed against his prostate, the only thing holding him up, against the jolt that rushed through him, was Tarquin’s cock.

“There. That’s what makes this feel so good for human males,” Terrence said. “Prostate, Tarquin. Tarquin, prostate.”

Tarquin chuckled, and when had his laugh become so fucking hot? It was like a rolling heat setting him alight.

Terrence realized that it could be Tarquin simply pressing against his prostate with every gentle corkscrew of his finger. 

“Anyway, I _will_ take all of you. Every inch,” he promised, taking a long lick of the tall staff before him. He gave a light squeeze of the base, provoking Tarquin to growl at him. Somehow, it didn’t scare him. If anything, it made him more interested in continuing.

“I’ll make sure of it. I won’t let you nut inside me until I feel _this_ ,” he squeezed the base again, “inside me.”

“I want that too,” Tarquin said. He began to buck his hips up, and Terrence sank back down his shaft, suckling on the cock thrusting gently into his mouth.

“You’ll message me when you get leave? You have my omnitool ID. I’ll try and coordinate so mine is at the same time.”

Terrence managed to nod an affirmative as Tarquin began to repeatedly hit the entrance to his throat. It was difficult not to gag.

“I won’t be able to get off for at least another six to nine months, so it’ll be a little while.” Tarquin suddenly stopped moving his finger.

“Stop for a second," he said.

Tarquin pulled his finger out of him, slowly, and presented him with his untouched middle finger.

“Get this wet please," Tarquin requested, his eyes dilating as Terrence took it in his mouth with relish.

A thrill of excitement went through Terrence at the idea of both his fingers inside him.  
Once his finger was sufficiently wet, he removed it, and Terrence began to distract himself by running his tongue along the veins of his cock.

Tarquin slowly eased his finger back inside about halfway to the previous depth, hissing moans escaping him as he did so at the feeling of Terrence’s mouth. He then began to gently push his second finger in, and it sank in with a burn. Terrence felt stuffed at both ends.

After several minutes of obscene wet noises from the sounds of Terrence’s mouth and Tarquin’s cock, which was throbbing more and more, Tarquin sank both fingers in to the second knuckle, watching with fascination as Terrence’s irritated ring squeezed spasmodically around his thick digits. 

Tarquin groaned deep in his chest.

“I believe you now. You can definitely take me. If only we had more time…”

With those words, they were both reminded by how little time they had left and both began to speed up. Tarquin’s hand moved from his head and rifled underneath him until he found Terrence’s cock, rock hard and dripping on the mattress and began to stroke him.

Terrence briefly lifted up to inform he was going to swallow, purely to see what he tasted like, and Tarquin began to stroke him with a vengeance.

One thing that Terrence could take from this experience, was that turians came a lot and made a shit ton of noise. It was a struggle to contain all the spurts of bittersweet cum in his mouth, and he’d wanted to, even whilst he shook as he came into Tarquin’s hand. Unfortunately, it ended up spilling out of his mouth, down the shaft and onto his base and crotch. Terrence mused to himself as he licked it all up with relish, that if there was one area where turians beat humans, outside of size, it was in the taste of their cum. He’d give them that.

“You taste pretty good,” he said, turning to lick his swollen lips of any remaining residue or cum at Tarquin. Tarquin’s fingers were still buried in his ass, so the resulting full body shudder Tarquin gave was also felt in his ass.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at a human’s lips the same way ever again,” he said breathlessly.

Terrence idly licked Tarquin’s cock clean for some time before checking his omnitool. 6:02.

“I need to shower. Want to share?” Terrence asked. Tarquin lead the way, lifting him in bridal style and ignoring his demands to put him down. Neither of them commented on the fingers still inside of him.

Their shower was rather chaste. There was some appreciation of each other’s bodies, with Terrence marvelling at his powerful thighs and abdomen and Tarquin idly exploring his muscled chest before falling back to gripping his muscular ass. The anticipation was palpable, but they focussed on getting clean and out. As they dried themselves, with his sharp eyes, Tarquin noticed the very slight discoloration on his right shoulder from the tattoo he used to have. 

“I used to have a tattoo of The Reds on my shoulder. Tattoos, let alone gang signs, are against Alliance regs. It had to go, so they paid for me to get it removed by laser.”

Tarquin nodded.

They dressed in silence, and suddenly the mood was somewhat sombre. 

“This is goodbye for now, I guess?” Terrence asked. Suddenly all the comfort and ease built seemed to shatter.

“We still have whales to get and England to conquer,” Tarquin said, raising a brow ridge in amusement. “I’m going to keep in touch with my only human friend.”

“Of course,” Terrence said, smacking his head in mock reprimand, “how can we forget Queen ‘twenty six galleasses’ Elizabeth. Forgive me, Tarquin.”

Again, like yesterday, he made his voice low and gravelly, a mimicry of his father.

“You are forgiven, my friend," Tarquin rumbled. His mandibles lifted in a wide smile that was returned wholeheartedly by Terrence.

They both laughed a little, the mood easing slightly.

“I.. I just want to thank you for everything. For listening. For the intimacy. For well.. just being you,” Terrence said, summoning every ounce of sincerity he could muster.

A flush of blue emerged on Tarquin’s neck.

“There’s no need, but you’re welcome,” Tarquin said. “Want me to come with you to the docks?”

Terrence shook his head in the negative.

“Sorry, but I want to do this alone. I just want to… stand on my own two feet? Not flinch and duck around non-humans or use you as a shield. I’m tired of being a coward.”

Being Tarquin, it seemed only natural that he’d understand. His mandibles flared in a smile.

“You’re a better, stronger person than you think you are, Terrence. I imagine you’ll show the Alliance that too.”

They exchanged salutes. Tarquin placing his hand on Terrence’s shoulder before placing a fist against his own chest, and Terrence simply placing his hand to his temple.

Terrence could only marvel at how strange it felt to be believed in as he walked out of the hotel room, head held high, feeling like the galaxy was his oyster.


	8. Being Biotic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? An update the next day??
> 
> Here's some of my biotic headcanon. I look forward to comments!

Life on the Normandy slowly got better. Whilst his change in mindset didn’t rapidly hit a switch that regained him the complete control he used to have, he was getting better and better by the day in biotic training. More importantly, the crew were slowly starting to include him in the camaraderie that he’d completely failed to notice in his brooding. It seemed that wherever he went, he picked up a nickname. From ‘resting bitch face nigga’ to ‘FNG’. Freaking New Guy. It was an improvement at least.

Terrence couldn’t help but think of what happened at breakfast, a week after shore leave on the Citadel.

“It seems you’ve finally removed the stick up your ass, Shepard,” Flight Lieutenant Moreau had said to him in the mess, having quickly noticed the neutral expression he’d adopted since the day after he’d returned from the Citadel.

“At least I don’t require assistance to shove something up my ass, Flight Lieutenant,” Terrence had joked back, where before he’d simply grunt or sneer at Moreau. They were the youngest onboard the ship - both being prodigies, except Moreau had more than exceeded expectations of him, whilst he’d floundered. Terrence had hated him for a time. If Moreau was the crown jewel of the ship (and he was a really fucking good pilot, even he couldn’t deny that), then he was the grumpy hermit that everyone was indifferent or borderline hostile towards.

Moreau’s customary smile faltered a second, and Terrence was about to apologize, when Moreau and one of the nearby engineers on Chief Engineer Adams’ table had roared with laughter. 

“He got you good, Joker,” Chief Engineer Adams had said between a sip of his coffee.

“Oh he did, he really did,” Joker had said, a wide grin turning up the slowly growing facial hair on his lip. “Whoever you got laid with, Shepard, please go and visit them every shore leave. You’re almost a normal person now!”

He didn’t bother to deny it. Even he knew, with how little he’d interacted with the crew, that if someone came aboard just before the ship became aweigh, they’d either came from important business or had gotten some the night before. Usually the latter.

“Will do, Flight Lieutenant,” Shepard had said, taking a break from dipping a slice of bread in his mystery soup to give a mock salute. 

“Pssh... “ Joker had waved his hands in dismissal. “Call me Jeff, or Joker. I prefer Joker,” Joker had said, offering his hand in a truce? Friendship? 

Terrence took it in his own.

“Nice firm handshake, man. No squeezing too,” Joker had said, tilting his head at him with a smile. “Taking pity on a little ol’ cripple like me?”

Terrence had almost spluttered in denial, incredibly self-conscious as everyone was watching now. Even Anderson from his spot at the canteen was watching from where he’d been speaking intently to the cook, Corporal Chase, he now knew his name to be.

“Should I have squeezed your hand to establish dominance or some shit?” Terrence had shook his head. “This is the military, not a boxing ring.”

Joker had tutted in disapproval.

“That’s how the pecking order in this place works, Shepard. You squeeze hard enough and you get promoted,” Joker had said. “How do you think I became a Flight Lieutenant at the age of twenty?”

Terrence had hummed under his breath in consideration before offering his right hand, a faint haze of blue enveloping it.

“Wanna try again? I’ll try not to shatter bones.” 

Joker had shook his head with a cautious chuckle whilst some scattered sounds of amusement had washed the mess.

“Sorry, I don’t want to find out if you’ve got full control of your space magic voodoo just yet. When I become an Admiral with my palms of steel, I’ll let everyone know that you deserve a promotion,” Joker had said.

“You’re not bad, Shepard,” he had said before wheeling himself back to his table, or more likely the cockpit.

The dull roar of chinking cutlery and conversation had re-engulfed the mess as he left.

Joker had been like the litmus test. Slowly, people started to involve him in their free time aboard the Tokyo.

Chief Engineer Adams had started inviting him to the drinking parties that he hosted on the lower decks. It had been a complete shock to find out that Chakwas, on the one time she’d been wrestled away from her work, could drink them all under the table. Sometimes, Pressly even said hello to him in the corridors.

The prick of a needle against the nape of his neck woke him from his recollections.

Terrence let out a slight hiss.

Chakwas wiped the area around his newly fitted amp with an antiseptic wipe. The surgery had been done whilst he’d been awake with local anaesthetic, but now that it had begun to wore off, it was starting to sting like hell. Was the entire back of his head meant to ache?

“I’m just taking a quick biopsy to ensure that everything is healthy.”

She placed the tissue and blood sample in a tube on the table next to them before carefully examining the nape of his neck.

“From a purely visual examination, it’s clear there’s some minor irritation,” minor? “due to rejection at the implant site from the surrounding tissues. I’ll give you some antibiotics and some anti-inflammatories to reduce the swelling.” 

She continued speaking.

“If those fail to work, we can put you on a program of immunosuppressants until we can find an amp more compatible with you.”

Terrence suddenly had vivid images of apocalyptic scenes where he’d been the source of a mutated version of a disease that had decimated the galaxy. _Kill the immunosuppressed!_ an incredibly sickly asari wheezed in his mind. 

Terrence shook his head in an attempt to escape his overactive imagination.

“And how long will that take, Major?” 

Chakwas gave a wry smile.

“Could be decades. Progress with biotic amps is proving slow as the asari and salarians are proving to be very cagey with the exact biophysics surrounding biotics. Our own explorations of it are slow due to the relatively limited potential of human biotics compared to asari. We’re better than them naturally at Kinetics and Spatial Distortion, but we don’t have the lifespan nor the biotic stamina. You have the latter, fortunately enough. Perhaps you’ll be pleased to know that your eezo readings are through the roof, for a human biotic anyway. Humans exposed to the level of eezo you have tend to end up with various forms of cancer.”

Chakwas walked away to one of the neighbouring terminals with the sample, leaving Terrence to wait patiently on the bed for the results and ruminate on the fact he could be on immunosuppressants for maybe the rest of his life. The fact he had more eezo than normal was something he was indifferent to. 

Biotics were a life sentence. He’d long known this, and this was the reality he’d have to face.

“Thanks for the info, Major,” he managed some time later, forcing a smile that likely looked like a wince.

A flash of concern crossed Chakwas’ face before she wisely changed the subject.

“When are you going to stop calling me that, Terrence?”

“When I can finally get my head around the fact that you’d be Captain Anderson’s superior if he wasn’t the CO,” he said.

“I knew I shouldn’t have went to Adams’ drink session,” she said. “I’m just a doctor now.”

The terminal’s low hum slowly came to a stop and Chakwas went towards it, staring at the readout with a downward arch to her eyebrows.

“Okay. I have very good and slightly bad news,” she said, a great smile on her face.

Terrence sighed in relief. He could deal with slightly bad news; it couldn’t be worse than the very bad news of immunosuppressants for life. The last thing he needed was to catch the flu and drop dead.

“The very good news is that the level of rejection is as low as I’d expected. Inflammatories and antibiotics should be more than enough to deal with it,” Chakwas said. “The slightly bad news is you’ll likely have some difficulties interfacing with ambient fields efficiently due to your unique biotic make-up.”

Chakwas gave him an expectant look. It was almost like she expected him to rush out.

He was curious.

“What do you mean?” 

“There’s a reason why biotic camps are called Brain Camp. Most element zero nodules, in humans at least, are concentrated in the brain: particularly in the cerebellum, brain stem, and parietal lobe. Then the rest are scattered around the nervous system, mostly the spine, allowing you to easily channel element zero through your limbs, for example.”

Chakwas paused for a moment.

“You don’t have a roaring appetite like most biotics, do you?”

“Not at all,” he said, rivetted. Finally, answers.

“The reason why humans biotics have to eat so much is that element zero, in solution, provides a large electrical resistance to neural signalling by accumulating in synapse gaps. This makes it so that there is a larger energy requirement to impulses passing from synapse to synapse. With how much energy the brain consumes, compared to the rest of the body, this is particularly energy draining, so human biotics have to eat a lot more to account for that energy sink. There’s a famous equation known as Singh’s resistive delta function that describes the energy increase that element zero nodules induce that I’ll spare you of.”

“But you.. I hope I’m not boring you,” Chakwas said hesitantly. “This is a field I’m quite interested in, particularly with how unique you are.” Terrence shook his head emphatically. He was enthralled.

No one had ever spoken to him about his biotics like this. Explaining all of this to him helped to make his biotics feel more like a part of him than an extension. Perhaps he didn’t understand everything she was saying, but the fact that she was saying it meant the world to him.

“Singh also discovered what’s known as the B&E quantities, or the Brain and Extremities Saturation. For humans, it’s roughly eight to two or nine to one. Eighty and twenty percent, ninety to ten percent, if you prefer it that way. Your files should have included yours, but pretty much everything regarding your biotic capability was redacted. Did you do any tests?”

Terrence nodded his head in the affirmative.

“They put me into a huge MRI machine and had me do some exercises.”

Chakwas nodded in understanding.

“MRI is useful in biotics. Element zero exists purely in solution in the human body and has more grey-scale in the resulting images compared to the water in the soft tissues of the brain.”

Chakwas pulled up a variety of charts she must have taken during the surgery. On the left was a normal eezo mapping, and on the right was his own. It was very clear, upon immediate inspection, he was different. Compared to the average healthy biotic, he had significantly more eezo along his arms and legs, quite a lot more in his spine, and considerably less in his brain.

“You’re roughly six to four - six point three two to three point six eight, to be exact. That’s closer to asari levels who are roughly four to six than anything else, but ultimately, it’s unique.”

Chakwas sounded incredibly fascinated.

“You’ll be an incredibly strong, no.. You’ll be an extremely powerful telekinetic and hand-to-hand biotic once you regain control. Throws and Lifts will be beyond easy for you.”

His childhood explorations with his biotics suddenly made a lot of sense. 

“I imagine you’ll be able to send a krogan flying into Mach two if you were to exert yourself to the point of self-haemorrhage.”

“I’ll pass on that,” Terrence said with a wince. 

“However, Kinetic Fields and Spatial Distortion, particularly Spatial Distortion will be incredibly hard for you, or at least challenging. I don’t think you’ll ever be able to do a good Singularity.”

“What about a Barrier? Is that still possible?” Terrence asked.

“That’s a kinetic field, but it shouldn’t be too hard. It’ll take you a significant time to master compared to a normal biotic.”

“Can you explain why… please?” 

Chakwas lit to life in face of his curiosity, quickly opening a freeform drawing program on the terminal.

She drew a horizontal plane on the bottom of the screen with a stylus and several lines perpendicular to the plane. Terrence chuckled when she drew a small stickman in the middle of the field.

She pointed at the stickman. 

“This is you, and the lines going downwards are the ambient biotic field. This is the combinations of ambient eezo fields, your own field, and any other biotics in the vicinities fields,” she said, pointing at the vertical lines.

“When you create a kinetic field or a spatial distortion, you are interfacing with this field. The ease with which this is done is down to the number of biotic points of contact between the biotic and the field.”

It clicked rather easily for Terrence.

“And I have more points of contact than the average biotic.”

“Exactly,” Chakwas said, and it was clear that she was pleased with his quick realization. 

“Why hasn’t my biotic instructor… Sergeant Dubyansky told me this?”

Chakwas frowned then.

“You should know this, but since you don’t, I’d imagine it’s because it’s above your paygrade and it’s best that you don’t know.”

Terrence was about to angrily refute, his body quickly rising off of the bed to better illustrate his point, that it was his body and his biotics, but Chakwas cut across him. He could see why she’d been a Major now with how despite the pained grimace on her face, her eyes were cold steel.

“Listen, Terrence. Telekinetics is known as the brute force of biotics whilst Kinetics and Spatial Distortion as the more subtler branches. If, say, _any_ , and I mean _any_ , biotic research firm found out that you existed, you’d likely be in a lab for the rest of your life, trying to reproduce your mapping in controlled conditions. With or _without_ your consent. Part of me is surprised that you’re not already in a lab,” she said in a whispered rush. “Telekinetics is the most intuitive of the branches, so if anyone could replicate your eezo mapping, then…”

Chakwas gave him a significant look.

“Easily trained army of biotics?”

Chakwas nodded.

“What’s stopping you? The Alliance?” Terrence demanded.

She gave him a sad smile.

“You have a healthy sense of distrust; thrown from one pan-fire into another, huh?” she joked, sounding almost maternal, and Terrence rankled under her sympathetic but largely approving gaze. “I have faith in the Alliance, you should too.. but truthfully, I don’t know.”

Chakwas arched a brow at him in question.

“Would you like to just sit here for a while and think about what I told you?”

He numbly nodded, not even reacting when Chakwas patted his shoulder in apology and left his antibiotics and anti-inflammatories on the bedside table. She returned to her terminal in the medical room, the echoes of her footsteps seemed to be imprinted in his mind as they resounded over and over again without pause.

It was only a month since he’d last seen Tarquin, and he immediately missed him more than he had since their time together. They kept in contact on a daily basis. He’d learnt a little more about him. Like how he and his squad were avid Galaxy of Fantasy players, which oddly explained so much as the image fit rather well. When Terrence had called them a bunch of nerds, he’d refuted that they were a bunch of war and micromanagement nerds. Terrence had laughed, imagining the self-righteous tone Tarquin would take with him. He’d also learnt that his estimation was a little off and Tarquin was a little above average for his species, being nine and a half inches long, rather than ten. He wasn’t surprised to hear he was thicker than average.

He needed to talk to Tarquin in person. There was definitely something powerful in having someone in person to talk to, to confide in, but that was for a later time. For now, he’d content himself with being able to speak to him over several thousands of light years in the privacy of his bunk during the graveyard shift.


	9. Slow Progression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, tell me what you think.

With greater control, came longer training sessions. Suddenly he was being drilled in using his biotics in conjunction with hand-to-hand and firearms. The former came naturally to him, channeling the blue energy that had alternatively ruined and saved his life through his limbs came intuitively to him. The latter was a lot more difficult. There was a large focus on maintaining a steady aim with a pistol and submachine guns when using his biotics. Everything about that was difficult. Once he thought he’d gotten the knack of something, Dubyansky was pushing him even harder.

Terrence was exhausted. Hands trembling, muscles aching, temples pounding, and sweat pouring off of his near naked form. The implant site of his amp was aflame with dull agony, but he was a soldier, and expected to push through what Dubyansky called a minor inconvenience. He’d taken off his uniform maybe an hour into this training session, having long soaked through it. Dubyansky hadn’t even raised an eyebrow in return, seeming to accept his choice to continue in his military issued briefs with little reaction.

They were approaching the four hour mark, having switched to a reaction time exercise for his biotics twenty minutes ago, and he was near the point of dropping dead. He’d have dropped dead a long time ago if it weren’t for Sergeant Dubyansky’s constant prodding and the fact that Anderson had begun to show a great deal of interest in the sudden surges of progress he was making. 

He had something to prove. He deserved to be here.

Terrence watched as Dubyansky turned to a pile of plastic intended for recycling with his omnitool. Using the fabrication module of his omnitool, he shaped it into hundreds of small spheres. Once satisfied, he fed them into a machine embedded in the plexiglass separating them with a simple Lift.

Terrence breathed in… willing his hands to be steady.

It felt like an eternity, the time he spent waiting for the sudden firing of those spheres. When they came, roughly six of them, he was too tired and too fed up to put the effort into deflecting them with just his hands.

His body lit up with an unearthly blue haze as he lazily waved his arm. The spheres went flying back towards the plexiglass, hitting it with sounds reminiscent of raindrops.

“No coronas, Terrence!” Dubyansky yelled, a large frown crossing his harsh features, from behind the plexiglass. 

“Alright, alright,” he rasped, fighting the urge to just sit down.

Dubyansky must have decided to take mercy on him as only two spheres came in the next volley. 

This time he managed to find the muscle control to quickly parry them both with gentle waves of his hand, making sure to keep the field localized only in front of his palm.

So it continued, Terrence occasionally screwing up and being a ‘biotic brute’ as Dubyansky chidingly called him.

Whilst Dubyansky packed up, tinkering with the training room’s settings to descend the plexiglass into the floor and moving the rest of the equipment to the side, Terrence just dropped to the floor and laid there, spread-eagle.

A bottle of water landed on his stomach, sending a wheezing gasp out of him. He looked up, screaming inside at the act of moving, giving an accusing glare at Dubyansky who was slowly approaching him.

“You did good, kid. I’m really pleased with your progress,” Dubyansky said. 

Terrence frowned. Being called kid didn’t bother him anymore, it was the progress part. It didn’t seem like he’d made enough if he was still working on his Telekinetics, three months after being on the Citadel, if he was meant to be some kind of prodigy in that field.

“Chin up. I’m not sugar-coating anything,” Dubyansky assured. The mountain of a man squatted beside him, offering him an energy bar he took with heartfelt thanks.

“We finished all those large scale Telekinetic techniques in a week; you should be proud.”

Terrence managed to muster a weak smile. Shockwaves, Smashes, Slams and Novas. All he’d learnt, to Dubyansky’s exacting standards, within a week. It hadn’t felt like much of an achievement at the time due to how easy it had been. 

“Yeah…” He sighed, an expression of both his sheer exhaustion and frustration. If this was meant to be his strength, his de facto strong area, then how long would it take him to learn other techniques that weren’t Telekinetics? Techniques like Barrier? Warp?

“Speak your mind, kid.”

He bit into the energy bar, so used to its taste that he didn’t cringe at the sickly sweet taste.

“It’s just.. I’m meant to be a biotic really good at Telekinetics, right?”

Dubyansky gave a slight nod.

“If I’m taking this long at this… what about the other fields? Kinetic Fields and Spatial Distortion?”

A smile lit up his slightly craggy, grizzled blonde face.

“Is that it? You want to move on?” He asked.

“Kind of?” Terrence wasn’t sure what he wanted.

“Your Telekinetics are fine when looked at in isolation,” Dubyansky offered. “They’re better than most Alliance biotics.”

“There’s a but there,” he mumbled, wolfing down the last of the energy bar.

Dubyansky took the wrapper without a sound. He rose to his feet and stretched his arms.

“You’re inefficient. You throw way too much energy into your techniques, but you get away with it due to the amount of stamina you have. Unfortunately, when we start looking at making you create a Barrier, that lack of energy efficiency and precise control will come to bite you in the ass, kid.”

“Well… fuck,” he lamely said.

Dubyansky chuckled, a gravelly sound that reminded Terrence of the fact his stomach had been rumbling at him for the last hour.

“Do some stretches and go and shower. You stink. I’ll ask Captain Anderson to let you off your duties for the rest of the day. You worked hard, kid.”

Terrence watched him leave the room in silence before proceeding to go through all the stretches and breathing exercises he’d been taught a year ago at the brief boot camp he’d went through. Once finished, he slowly gathered up his uniform, quickly discarding the notion of putting it back on when he felt how damp it was, and slowly limped towards the door.

The showers were right next door to the room he was in, so he wasn’t particularly concerned about being seen. There was also the additional caveat that he wasn’t ashamed of his body.

Nobody saw him as he slipped into the showers, discarding his uniform and issued briefs in the laundry pile outside the room, and settling underneath a shower head, sighing as water hit his aching muscles.

His mind wondered as he began to lather himself with soap. He hadn’t told Tarquin about what Chakwas had told him two months ago, instead choosing to keep their conversations light and friendly. It didn’t take much thinking to come to the conclusion that it’d be safest if Tarquin didn’t know, at least for now. Thinking of Tarquin made him think of other things, reminding him of things like the feeling of his thick fingers inside of him, preparing him to take his dick. Terrence knew that if they’d had enough time, lube or no lube, he would have let Tarquin fuck him.

He still had no regrets about what happened between them but it was still confusing to him. During their last shore leave at Arcturus, he’d just wandered the space station, sight-seeing, after declining to go with the rest of the group. They’d given him sly smiles and thumbs-up when they thought he wasn’t looking, assuming he was getting laid, which he had after his walk. He’d taken the opportunity to just look at aliens, to see if they were at all appealing to him. Asari had slowly began to come familiar to him due to how they were the most populous non-human in Alliance space, yet they still did nothing for him. He saw only one turian during his four hour wander, a surly, purple-marked one, who had given him a dirty look when he’d caught him watching him. He also did nothing for him. He’d understand his and Tarquin’s relationship better if he felt physically attracted to turians, but he wasn’t. Sleeping with someone he wasn’t attracted to was something he’d done in the past, but there’d never been such a strong connection. Despite his confusion, he tended to fantasize about Tarquin when he felt pent-up, utilizing the privacy of his cot or the showers to release the tension.

Even now, it was easy to default to his favourite fantasy as of late involving Tarquin. One involving him straddling his legs while Terrence lay prone, slowly easing his fat turian cock in and out of his tight ring. He shuddered, stroking his growing erection with a soundless gasp, as he imagined the intense fullness of Tarquin bottoming out inside him; he’d probably be in his guts. He leaned against the wall, closing his eyes, as he began to immerse himself in the fantasy. Tarquin would be spreading his cheeks wide, ensuring that even the thick base would enter, and the pads of his fingers would dig into his ass as he lazily rode him. The thick ridges on his underside would rub ceaselessly against his prostate, making him groan into the cradle of his hands. Terrence began to stroke himself, slowly and deliberately, matching the pace that the Tarquin in his mind would assume. With all the fluids that Tarquin’s dick produced, it’d get wet and slick very quickly. He’d thrust faster, harder, and it wouldn’t take long for the squelches of his fluids to dominate the sound of the dull slap of his wide hips hitting his muscled ass. 

“Shit,” he mumbled. Terrence’s idle hand moved to pinch at his nipples.

Tarquin would eventually move his hands to grip his shoulders for leverage after laying down on top of him, growling lowly at the feeling of his ring constricting around the base of his hilted cock. He’d start thrusting again - fast and shallow, aiming to tease him with the rapid rub of his ridges against his insides. Terrence would plead and groan for more, for him to go deeper, and Tarquin would oblige and pull him onto all fours. However, he wouldn’t oblige without giving a low, rumbling chuckle that would send chills through him. 

Then he would really start pounding him. Deep, hard and fast. His hands would grip tightly onto his waist, controlling his ability to match his thrusts. Terrence’s own voice would be drowned out by the loud slaps of their bodies coming together and the wet noises of their coupling. One of Tarquin’s hands would wander beneath him, to his crotch, stroking Terrence’s dick in time with his demanding thrusts. Terrence wouldn’t be able to see it, but he’d be able to imagine the sight of his own length inside Tarquin’s massive hand; the feeling of that rough, leathery triadic hand working along his shaft would give his imagination enough to work with. Then Tarquin would bottom out for the last time, deeper than ever in this position, with a slight tremor running through his hips before he came inside him with a rumbling moan. Even with Tarquin buried deep inside him, hilted to the point they were entirely connected, it would leak down his thighs as his orgasm went on and on.

It was enough.

He came with his fist in his mouth to cover up his cry, stroking himself as he spurted all over the shower wall. 

“Fuck..”

He quickly left the shower, wrapping a clean towel around his waist and making his way back to the barracks. No one reacted to his presence, long used to the sight of him taking showers outside of the regimented hours.

He settled down in his cot after getting half-dressed with a sigh. With a grunt, he folded the towel and placing it in the small storage space beside him, uncaring that his few possession would get wet..The dull ache in his muscles flared as he opened his omni-tool checking to see if Tarquin had sent him a message. A satisfied smile crossed his face to see that he had.

[16:42 AST] Tarquin Victus: I’d like your opinion on something.

[18:21 AST] Terrence Shepard: Go ahead.

It took Tarquin a while to respond, time that he ended up spending in a doze. His omni-tool chimed, startling him from his sleep. Looking around, it seemed he was missing dinner by the dull roar he could hear from the mess. 

[19:02 AST] Tarquin Victus: I have the opportunity to be evaluated for command training in a couple of weeks. What do you think?

Shepard yawned, lowering the brightness of the messenger app, and gave the question some thought.

[19:04 AST] Terrence Shepard: That depends. Is this what Tarquin Victus wants or what the son of General Adrien Victus wants?

Terrence had gradually come to learn more about what Tarquin’s father meant to him: how he was something of a father to his men, something of a modern day warrior king. He was able to read the pride in Tarquin’s words as he told him how his father was a tactical genius whose tendency for the clever and sneaky both reviled and impressed the primarchs who were his superiors. 

[19:05 AST] Tarquin Victus: I’m pretty sure I want to do this. 

Terrence thought it was time that he said something he should have said long ago.

[19:08 AST] Terrence Shepard: As long as you find your focus, and don’t pretend to be a clone of your father, go for it. Your father’s way isn’t the only way to be a great leader. My commanding officer, Captain Anderson, isn’t a tactical prodigy like your father is. He’s good, but not that good. What he’s done instead is to surround himself with talented people; people who can cover his weaknesses and bolster his own strengths. As a result of this, he can keep a very hands-off approach and ensure that things run smoothly and everyone is content. It’s not always about tactical flair, authoritative demeanours and powerful rhetoric. Find your niche, Tarquin. Perhaps you’re not as skilled at tactics as he is. I’m fairly sure you have a unique combination of skills that will allow you to live up to outside expectations.

[19:11 AST] Tarquin Victus: What if I don’t know what my strengths are?

[19:12 AST] Terrence Shepard: I imagine you’ll find those out in your command training then. Your life isn’t defined at your birth, Tarquin.

[19:15 AST] Tarquin Victus: You’ve given me a lot to think about. Thanks.

[19:17 AST] Terrence Shepard: It’s alright. How’s your leg?

Tarquin had had a mission two days ago, an incursion with turian separatists on a backwater colony. He’d been shot in the lower thigh. Terrence hadn’t worried, he’d long known that Tarquin was made of sterner stuff than most. He couldn’t help but wonder when he himself would first enter combat; he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that happening.

[19:18 AST] Tarquin Victus: It’s good. I had a short physio session an hour ago and was given the all clear.

[19:19 AST] Terrence Shepard: I’m glad to hear it.

[19:21 AST] Tarquin Victus: Seen combat yet?

Terrence smiled. This was a frequent question from him.

[19:21 AST] Terrence Shepard: Not yet. I’m kind of nervous about it.

[19:22 AST] Tarquin Victus: About your biotics?

[19:22 AST] Terrence Shepard. Nah. I can control those now. I don’t know really, maybe it’s the fact that it will really hit the point that I’m military now. It’s still surreal.

[19:23 AST] Tarquin Victus: You’ll get used to it; it’s not as bad as you’d think.

If there was something that Terrence could appreciate, it was a turian’s tendency to directness. None of that namby-pamby bullshit that some humans would resort to. 

He yawned.

[19:24 AST] Terrence Shepard: I hate to cut this short, but I need to get some rest. I’ll message you tomorrow when I’m free and you can show me that squad shooter you’ve been trying to get me to play.

[19:25 AST] Tarquin Victus: It’s called Operation: Titans of Palaven. You’ll like it. Trust me.

Terrence shook his head in amusement before deactivating his omnitool and catching some much needed sleep.


End file.
